


Four Dipshits and a Michelle

by Under_the_water



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Best Friends, Blood and Injury, Eventual Smut, F/M, High School, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kissing, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Pedophilia, Michelle Jones Needs a Hug, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Neck Kissing, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Precious Peter Parker, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, True Mates, Underage Drinking, mentions of abuse, mentions of assault, procrastination central over here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:34:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27122575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Under_the_water/pseuds/Under_the_water
Summary: Michelle never believed in soulmates. But what happens when she turns seventeen and gets her mark? What happens when she inevitably finds the person with the matching tattoo?And what is she supposed to do with Peter Parker. Her best friend in the whole world. Her crush. Someone she feels drawn to for some inexplicable reason.
Relationships: Betty Brant/Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 258
Kudos: 340





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, loves! This is my first time writing for this fandom! I really hope you like what you read!

Michelle Jones never understood the infatuation human society had with soulmates.

As a little girl full of hopes and dreams, she admits she was rather fond of the idea: someone out there who was perfect for her, someone who she could share her life with, her soul-bonded partner.

Until her mom got sick. And her dad started treating his wife like his own personal punching bag and then left them with barley enough money to get by. And that sucked, but Michelle could deal with it. She really could.

(But she was not okay.)

But after that initial honeymoon phase, after seeing a relationship that was supposedly written in the cosmos fall apart, she was wrenched back to a sad, logical reality.

After giving up on her soulmate, she found it grating how often it came up in seemingly normal discussion.

This, Michelle thought, was rather ridiculous, considering they were all freshman in high school, and wouldn’t be turning 17 for at least two years, three for most of them.

When she woke up on the morning of February 27th, she was not expecting the day to be anything special or different.

Trudging to the bathroom, half asleep with hair in her mouth, she thought she might pass out. Damn her for opting to take the PCB (physics, then chemistry, then biology) route instead of being normal like almost every other kid at Midtown Tech.

The only bonus to PCB was that she had the same kids in her science class every year. Betty and Cindy and Ned and Peter. The only downside was Flash, who was insufferable on the very best of days. He was also on the PCB track.

(Ugh.)

Point was, Michelle had stayed up super late the previous night studying for a massive test with Peter and Ned, and she was absolutely exhausted.

(Physics could be a bitch sometimes.)

“Hey, Sweetie, how did you sleep?” Her mom was laying on the couch, nose shoved into her book, right arm hooked up to an IV. When Michelle didn’t answer immediately, she looked up and let out a soft _oh_. “Rough night?” She asked.

Michelle sighed. “Yeah. Big test today. Studied with the losers last night.”

“Well, good luck, honey.” MJ started walking toward the door. “Oh, and, Michelle? Don’t call your friends losers.”

Michelle ran a hand through her hair, the chocolate curls a tangled mess perched atop her head.

————————————————————

“Hey, MJ.” Michelle looked up to see Peter waving at her, toothy grin and glasses and a dark blue sweater. She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head. Too early, Idiot.

Physics went as well as could be expected. Lunch was a different story.

“I can’t wait,” Betty said dreamily. “I wonder what they’ll look like.”

“I wonder what my soulmark will be,” Ned said, looking up from his English notes. “With my luck, it’ll be worse than that senior with a foot tattooed down the right side of his face.”

Michelle snorted. “Yeah, maybe it’ll be a giant dick or something.”

“Maybe yours’ll be a unicorn, MJ. You know, to match your personality,” Ned fired back.

She stiffened, looking around at the group. ‘‘I don’t want a soulmate,” she muttered.

“What? Why not?” Cindy exclaimed, her eyes almost comically wide.

Peter looked up at that. His glasses had fallen down his nose considerably, and he shoved them back up his face. Dork.

Michelle shrugged. “I just don’t. They’re pointless.”

“Well,” Peter started, “maybe one day you’ll change your mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not likely, Parker.”

“Tell that to your soul-bonded partner.”

A soft chorus of _oohs_ echoed from the Table around her. She needed new friends.

“Whatever. Even if I find my soulmate, I’ll just avoid them like the plague. Shouldn’t be that hard with all my practice when it comes to you lot.”

Peter let out a small _uh-huh_ , and went back to whatever the hell it was he was doing.

It wasn’t like she and Peter didn’t argue. As best friends, it was kind of part of the job description. But Peter and Ned already knew how she felt about soulmates and soulmarks. Michelle was surprised he had pushed her on that front. Weird.

She cleared her throat.

—————————————————————

Sophomore year rolled around, and with it came Academic Decathlon. Michelle befriended Liz almost immediately. She was so nice, and perfect, and smart.

About halfway through the year after a field trip for AcaDec, Peter missed school for over a week. Something about catching a bug on the trip. On day 10, Michelle went to his apartment.

May opened the door. “Oh, hey, MJ! Peter is in his room. He’ll be glad to see you,” she said, a smile gracing her face.

Michelle walked past May with a small nod of acknowledgement. When she entered Peter’s room, she was fairly surprised to see that he, in fact, did actually look very sick. He was on the floor covered in sweat and shaking.

“Ohmigod, Peter! Are you okay?”

“Oh, MJ. Didn’t know you cared. How sweet of you,” he managed through chattering teeth.

“I don’t, Loser. Here,” Michelle leaned down, “let me help you to your bed.”

“No!” Peter scrambled backward over a pile of schoolwork, the pages sticking to his hands. _The sweat, probably_ , thought Michelle

She quirked an eyebrow.

“I, uh—I don’t want to get you sick, is all,” he explained.

“Whatever, Loser,” she said. “I brought you your schoolwork, so… here you go.” She dropped the stack onto his unoccupied bed, spared Peter one more glance, shrugged, and turned to walk out of the room.

“MJ, wait. Thank you, for, uh, for the schoolwork.”

She flipped him off on the way out the door. Weirdo.

Peter started changing after that. He started filling out his shirts more. She figured he had started working out or something.

Not that she was looking at him. Because she wasn’t.

He no longer wore glasses, and dropped out of marching band and robotics club. He disappeared at nationals, showing up only for the ride home after the fiasco at the Washington Monument (of all the times to gain a rebellious streak AcaDec nationals was not the time or the place). Michelle glared at him nonstop for a week after that.

People started avoiding the topic of soulmates and soulmarks around her, knowing it was a touchy subject.

Over the course of the year, Michelle grew closer to Peter and Ned than the other kids in Acadec.

—————————————————————

“MJ?” Peter looked back at her from where he was squatting down in front of the DVD player. He was wearing sweats and a math pun t-shirt that stretched tightly across his chest. His arms across his legs were lithe and muscled. How had she never noticed before…

And she was staring. Michelle blushed furiously. Peter smirked. She flipped him off. He chuckled.

“What do you want?” She asked. His hair was gelled back like every day, but it was a bit mussed, falling onto his forehead. Her blood heated. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair, wondered how soft it would be.

Peter ran a hand through said hair, biting his lip. “Have you—uh—have you ever seen The Princess Bride?” He asked.

MJ rolled her eyes. This boy. “Bits and pieces. I was never really interested in that mushy, gushy, sappy shit. Besides, we are _not_ watching that.”

“Uh, yeah, we are. It’s simply tragic how your previous social circle failed you,” he said, scrunching his nose up. It was ~~cute~~ annoying.

Michelle squinted at him, mouth becoming a thin line. He smiled back innocently. She flipped him off. Again.

She relented in the end.

Peter hopped up next to where she was sitting, stretching his arms up and over the back of the couch. Michelles’s eyes snagged on the bit of exposed skin where his shirt had ridden up. Were those… abs? She shook her head, looking back toward the now-glowing TV screen. Her nerdy best friend Peter Parker could not have abs. ~~But.~~

Michelle had to admit that the movie wasn’t actually as bad as she had initially thought. The reason for that was mostly Peter. The absolute dweeb was acting out the fight scenes _with himself_. Watching Peter try and punch and defend himself at the same time was pretty funny.

MJ looked over at Peter during the end of the movie. He was looking at her.

“Why don’t you believe in soulmates?” He blurted, then proceeded to clap a hand over his mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry. You really, uh, really don’t have to answer that.”

And maybe it was the laughter they had shared together. Maybe it was the way she felt safe around him, or how his hair curled behind his ears, but, “My parents were soulmates. It—it didn’t work out."

That was all she was willing to share.

Peter nodded, swallowing thickly and looking back to the movie. “I think Ned’s right,” he said. Michelle raised an eyebrow at him. He cleared his throat, “Your soulmark is definitely going to be a unicorn. Or a pegasus. Or a rainb—”

“Shut up, Parker.”

Peter raised his hands defensively, grinning.

They talked for another hour, but Peter couldn’t seem to drop the conversation about soulmates.

“Hey, MJ?” He said, giving her a curious look.

Michelle hummed.

Peter ran a hand through his hair. With all the posing while acting out the movie, it looked like he had just gotten out of bed. Maybe even just had—

No. Best friend. Peter was her _best friend_. Nothing more.

“On your birthday,” he ventured, “when you get your mark, will you tell me about it? We could, like, make fun of each other’s or something. Once I get mine, that is.”

Michelle hesitated. Then: “Sure, okay. Yeah, that sounds good.”

Peter beamed at her and her heart did a backflip. It was worth talking about her soulmark to see that smile, different from his usually timid upturned lips. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Awesome! What are best friends for if not to make fun of shit,” he said.

Best friend. The words stung a bit, even if they were true.

\-----------------------------------------------------

Junior year came faster than any of them expected, and with it, standardized testing. Michelle was sad that Liz had moved away the year prior when her dad was caught selling alien technology illegally, but she was excited to be team captain this year. She, Peter, and Ned had all celebrated with a _Lord of the Rings_ movie marathon, but over the past few months, Peter and Ned had been sharing hushed conversations. MJ wasn’t sure what was going on, but it made her feel kind of shitty—like she was being pushed out of their friend group.

But then Peter would shoot her a shy smile, and she would feel a little better. There was definitely something going on, though.

Betty got her mark over the summer—a small cat’s eye in the palm of her left hand—but she had had no luck finding the person with the matching tattoo, much to her chagrin.

Michelle truly felt like she was rocketing toward her birthday. Somehow, she and Peter had found a way to turn her soulmate into a bit of a joke, which helped. A little.

That’s how Michelle found herself on the phone with Peter, wearing a tank top and shorts in the middle of winter, watching the seconds tick down to midnight.

“I’m so excited,” Peter said over the phone. “I can’t wait to see if it’s a unicorn or a pegasus.”

“Can it, Parker,” Michelle snapped. She was strangely terrified, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Okay, Magic Princess Unicorn—”

“I mean it, Pete.”

“Ten seconds, MJ.”

“Shit,” she whispered, hands shaking as she hastily put Peter on speaker, and set down the phone, turning to face the floor-length mirror.

“Do you see anything?” He asked. Did he sound… nervous?

Michelle scanned her arms and legs in the mirror, turned around and did the same on the back. “ _Fuck_.”

“What?” Peter said, voice crackling over the phone. “What is it? Is it a Unicorn?”

“No,” Michelle gasped out. “I don’t see anything.”

It was true she didn’t want anything to do with her soulmate, but it did hurt that she didn’t even have one.

She let out a sob, then slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

“MJ—MJ, calm down. It’s probably just somewhere else. Try taking your clothes off.” Michelle felt her toes curl into the carpet, her breath hitched. “Fuck,” Peter said. “I didn’t mean it like that—fuck, that came out wrong.”

 _You don’t need to apologize_ , Michelle thought. Instead, she nodded, then, realizing he couldn’t see her over the phone, she cleared her throat and said, “No, I get it—what you meant, I mean.” She cringed, Christ, she was absolutely horrible at this. “God, I hope it’s not on my ass.”

Peter let out a bark of laughter. Michelle smiled, then remembered her situation, frowned.

“Stop frowning, you’ll get premature wrinkles,” Peter said.

Michelle frowned deeper. “How do you know I’m frowning?”

“I know you, MJ. Now stop frowning. There’s only one way to know if you have a tattoo on your ass,” Peter said, choking on the last word. “Just check.”

Michelle loosed a breath. “Okay. I guess you’re right.”

She turned back toward the mirror, reaching for the waistband of her shorts and underwear, pulling them both down at the same time. Nothing on the front. She shimmied around a bit, before giving in and stepping out of her shorts. She glanced over her shoulder into the mirror. Nothing.

She took off her tank top next, checking her back first, since she was already facing in that direction. Still nothing. She turned around and ran her fingers over her stomach. Nothing there, either. Goddammit.

She slowly reached back to unclasp her bra and let it slide down her arms. “ _Mother fucker_ ,” she said quietly.

She’s not sure how, but Peter heard her. “MJ? What’s the status? Did you find it?”

“Yeah, I did. And I fucking hate the universe.” She hissed.

Peter laughed nervously. “Well, what is it? Where is it?”

“Like hell I’m telling you!” MJ screeched.

“C’mon, Michelle, we had a deal!” Peter said. She could picture him laying down in bed, then sitting up abruptly, hair mussed like that night they had watched The Princess bride together. And that strip of skin she’d glimpsed and—fuck, she was thinking about him while she was naked.

“Peter, I literally had to take all my clothes off just to find it. I am not telling you about this ever. God, this is so humiliating.” Michelle looked in the mirror again and winced. Staring back a her was her naked body, dark skin gleaming in the moonlight, curls coming down over her breasts. She moved her hair out of the way to get a better look at her mark, and… there it was. A fist-size black spider sitting in the middle of her left breast, right over her nipple. She groaned, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

“Oh, c’mon, M. It can’t be that bad,” Peter said.

“It’s bad, Pete,” Michelle sighed. “Well, at least this way my soulmate won’t be able to see my mark.”

Michelle stroked a finger over one of the spider’s legs and shivered. Peter swore over the phone.

“What?” Michelle asked.

“Nothing,” Peter said, though his voice was shaky. “Just got a shiver. That’s what I get for not wearing a shirt.

_This boy._

And now she was picturing him shirtless. Fuck. With that mussed-up hair. Double-fuck. She looked down to find that the hand near her breast had grabbed on, kneading the soft flesh. Holy mother of god, an infinite amount of fucks. But it felt good. _Really_ good. She let out a quiet moan.

“MJ? What’s going on, are you okay?” How the ever-living hell did Peter keep hearing her? She could barely hear herself.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she managed. Thankfully she sounded normal, if not a little breathy. “Just a little messed up after seeing the mark, you know? I wasn’t expecting to feel so… attached to it.” Because that’s what it was, she realized. She could already feel her connection to someone else, and she hated herself for loving it, for craving that sensation to be stronger.

“Okay. We should probably both go to sleep anyway,” Peter said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?” He sounded worried, but he was willing to give her space. That was one of the things she valued most about their friendship.

“Yeah,” Michelle said. Then, when she heard him start to shift, presumably on his bed (God help her), she interrupted, “and, Peter?” He hummed in response. “Put a shirt on. It’s cold out.”

He grunted. “Yeah, will do, M.”

Somehow Michelle got the feeling he wasn’t going to put on a shirt. Idiot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trope of the day: and there was only one bed dfhbakfkjfhah
> 
> Also, there's some smut in this one...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kind comments! They really brightened my day and I've been writing like a fiend, so here's another chapter way earlier than I planned on posting it!

Michelle couldn’t meet Peter’s eyes the next day. Not after last night. Not after she had hung up the phone, climbed into bed, and finished what she had started when Peter caught her moaning. When she had touched her heat, and it had felt different than when she just cleaned down there showering, when it had felt _better_.

And then when her hand had found her soulmark and stroked it, and her orgasm had wracked her body, ricocheting through her in hot blades of pleasure. She had never really done anything like that before, never felt the need to, and as she had collapsed on her bed, she had wondered how--how had she not.

But worst of all, when she had whispered _Peter_ as she came undone, still touching her mark.

She felt dirty. Trapped between two people: a soulmate she didn’t want and an off-limits best friend she did.

Peter kept looking at her during Biology, too. The fact that they were lab partners didn’t make matters any easier. Nor did it help that he was practically a furnace sitting next to her. And it was mid-winter and the classroom was _very_ cold, and she so wanted to lean into that heat.

Their teacher cleared his throat. “Alright, class. We’re going to start the fetal pig dissection today. Now, we’ve been preparing for this for about a week, so I won’t be walking you through every step of the process. Got it?” The class nodded. “Great. Pigs are in the corner, one per table group, and please try to keep the joking around to a minimum.”

Peter looked over and started to say something but Michelle was already gone. When she got back he had his binder out on the table and a pencil in his hand. He started to open his mouth again—

“Don’t,” Michelle said. “It’s not something I want to talk about.” She loosed a breath and looked up. His eyes floored her, warm and brown and so, _so_ deep.

Maybe someday she would look back on this with him and laugh. Laugh about her stupid crush. Without thinking her hand came to rest over her soulmark. Thankfully this could be passed off as a hand to the heart, and not… what it really was.

Peter’s eyes dropped to her chest, then flicked back up to meet her eyes. He licked his lips. Michelle followed the movement, then mentally cursed herself.

“So, what should we name our pig?” Peter asked. Michelle just gave him an unimpressed look. “What? It needs a name.” He looked at her pleadingly.

Michelle sighed. “Fine. What do you want to name,” she examined the pig, “him?”

Peter grinned. “Iron Man.”

She scoffed. “Absolutely not. We are not naming this poor pig after Iron Man. He’s basically an ego on wheels.” Peter looked like he was about to argue. “Look, if you really want to name our dead pig-child after an avenger, let’s name him Spider-Man. Or even better: Spider-Pig.”

Peter cleared his throat and laughed nervously. “Why, uh, why him? Why not, like, Captain America or Hawkeye or someone—anyone—else?”

“He protects Queens, Peter,” Michelle explained. “It makes the most sense. Besides, have you seen his suit? Super cool.”

Peter puffed his chest out a little. Weird.

With that step out of the way, they continued with the dissection, cutting a slit down the center of Spider-Pig’s stomach, careful not to puncture any of the organs. They made small talk between trying to locate the different parts of the pig’s digestive system. Little things: how May had been, what kind of stuff Michelle had been drawing (though she only told him part of that), MJ’s stupid landlord problems (they had been having issues with the heating). It was nice talking to him, pretending last night didn’t happen.

The end of the period came too fast, the bell startling Michelle so she jumped. Peter chuckled a bit, and she punched him lightly in the arm, smiling a little herself, too.

English and art passed by quickly, and before she knew it, she was standing in the lunch line waiting for her food.

When she reached their usual table, Betty looked up and said, “Happy Birthday, MJ!” Then, more conspiratorially, “You got your soulmark, right? What is it?”

Michelle rolled her eyes. This girl was never going catch a hint, was she? But MJ just shrugged. “Yeah, I got it, but I won’t tell you what or where.”

Betty pouted, and MJ saw Ned’s eyes trained on her lips. Honestly, could he be any more obvious? Betty didn’t notice, though, instead saying, “Oh, c’mon, M, just _tell us_.”

MJ glared and shook her head. Conversation over.

Peter coughed from behind her, and she stiffened, slowly turning around to face him.

“You’ll still make fun of my mark with me come August even if you won’t tell me about yours, though, right?” He asked.

Michelle was about to say no, but he just looked so hopeful—a bit like a lost puppy, if she was being honest. So she shrugged, and nodded.

“Ooh,” Cindy exclaimed, “Maybe your soulmate is Peter, MJ.”

Michelle scoffed. Not fucking likely. She and Peter were best friends, nothing more. “Don’t be gross, Cindy. He’s my best friend. He’s like a brother to me.” That last part wasn’t true, but they didn’t need to know that. Especially not Peter, who was blushing and spluttering more than she was.

“Shame,” Betty sighed. “You two would be cute together.”

Michelle flipped her off. Peter coughed loudly to her right, looking like the world’s most uncomfortable teenager. Ned opened his mouth, and Peter elbowed him in the side, his expression going from embarrassed to murderous.

“L-lets, just drop it, Betty. Clearly neither of us is interested,” Peter added.

_Ouch_ , that hurt a little.

—————————————————————

That night was spent with Peter and Ned furiously trying to memorize the digestive system of a pig for the pop quiz their teacher had hinted at heavily that morning in class.

“That’s the gallbladder, right?” MJ asked, furrowing her brow.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” said Peter, leaning over her shoulder. His breath tickled her ear and she bit her lip, trying with all her might not to shiver at the way he made her nerves stand on end. “I think it’s actually that little thing right there. Don’t quote me on that, though.” He grinned at her, then quickly looked away.

They went on like that for a few hours, slowly making their way through the mountain of homework they had been assigned.

MJ’s phone rang suddenly, making them all jump. “Crap,” she said, blindly reaching into her waistband. She managed to pull out her phone to see that her mom was calling her. “Sorry, guys, I’ve got to take this.”

“No Problem, M. Take your time,” Ned responded, giving her a small smile. Peter nodded in agreement, and Michelle stepped away into the Parker’s sitting room. She raised her phone to her ear: “Hey, Mom. What’s up?” She asked.

“Hi, Honey. The heating went out at the apartment, so I’m at the hospital—Nothing’s wrong, so don’t freak out! The doctors just didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be in such a cold house because of—well, you know.”

“Yeah, Mom. I can talk to the landlord about it tomorrow morning. As long as you don’t need anything from the house—if you do, I can run home now and bring it to you—”

“No, M. I’ll be fine for tonight. And, Honey?” Her mom said.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I don’t want you going home tonight, okay? It’s below freezing and I don’t want you catching a chill.”

“But, Mom,” MJ started.

“No buts, Michelle. Ask if you, Peter and Ned can have a sleepover or something. I love you, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her mom hung up. No room for argument.

Michelle swore under her breath, then turned to go back into Peter’s room. They looked up as she came in, curious expressions on their faces. “Hey, guys,” she said, “the heating in my apartment went out. Is it possible for me to stay here for the night? We—we could maybe have a sleepover?”

“Yeah, sure. That sounds good with me. Ned?” Peter asked, looking at his best friend.

“I can’t, sorry. I need to look after my little sister tonight.”

“Ok. Pete, are you sure this is okay?”

“Of course. Besides, your mom is right: it’s too cold outside to not have heating.” Michelle briefly wondered how he knew about her mom’s worries as she hadn’t voiced this particular part of their conversation, but she put it out of her mind. She had more important things to worry about, like how she was spending the night alone with Peter less than twenty four hours after she had gotten herself off to the thought of him. She fought back a blush and nodded at Peter to hide her growing discomfort. May would be back soon, anyway. It wasn’t like they would be _alone_ alone.

MJ sat down and pulled her binder toward herself again. The rest of their work was for separate classes, so they couldn’t really work together, but it was still nice to have study buddies to keep her on track.

Soon enough, though, Ned had to leave. After the initial conversion, Ned had explained that his parents were going out for a little alone time, and he needed to make sure his younger sister got to bed at a reasonable time. He did this with much complaint, now that he knew his two best friends were going to have a sleepover together.

Honestly, if MJ was being honest, she was kind of excited about getting a little alone time with Peter. The whole day had been a little awkward, and she just wanted everything to go back to normal.

“Movie?” Peter asked. He started to get up and move to the sitting room.

“Yeah, sure. We could just stick with Star Wars tonight, though.”

Peter grinned at her and her heart did a somersault. _Damn those perfect teeth_. Michelle followed him out of the room.

They ended up watching _Empire Strikes Back_ as they were both in agreement it was the best Star Wars film. They joked throughout the movie, and Peter, ever the dramatic, acted out his hand being chopped off when the time came.

Soon, though, the movie came to an end. Michelle looked at the time: 11:00. They had school tomorrow and she didn’t want to be a zombie, so, “We should probably get to bed.”

Peter nodded. He got up from the couch and made his way back to his room. “I’ll be in the bathroom.”

This time it was MJ’s turn to nod, and she followed him into his bedroom. Peter quickly closed the door to the bathroom and Michelle heard the shower turn on. She pulled out her book and started to read.

Peter wasn’t in the shower for very long, Michelle had only read about fifteen pages when he exited the bathroom. She looked up. And froze.

Peter was wearing his boxers.

_Only_ his boxers.

And she had been right the other night: Peter had abs. And pecs and biceps and every other defined muscle that, put together, made him sexy as hell. Her eyes trailed down his toned stomach to the defined _v_ that led down past the waistband of his boxers. Fuck her, she was going to jump him right where he stood.

“What are you wearing?” She croaked, breath catching in her throat.

Peter looked down at himself, then back at her. “This is what I wear to sleep. I get too hot in anything more.” He grinned at her slyly. “But if it makes you uncomfortable, I can—”

“No!” MJ interrupted. “I mean, no. It’s fine. Wear whatever makes you comfortable.” Then she realized something: “Um, actually, speaking of sleepwear, I don’t have anything to, you know…”

“Oh—oh, yeah. Here,” he said, ruffling through some drawers and pulling out a shirt and a pair of sweats and tossing them to her. “You can use these.”

Michelle quietly accepted the clothes, trying hard to keep her eyes trained on his face, and moved to the steamy bathroom. She didn’t have any shampoo or conditioner with her, but she figured Peter wouldn’t mind if she borrowed some of his. It definitely wouldn’t be very good for her curls but she was willing to take the risk. She really needed a shower. She hadn’t showered the previous night after her… activities, and she felt pretty disgusting just thinking about sleeping in the same room as him when the sweat that had dried on her skin had been from touching herself with his name on her lips.

She stepped into the shower, letting the hot water cascade down her shoulders and then the rest of her body. Her mark started to tingle as the water ran over it. _Shit_. MJ looked up at the ceiling. If there was a god, he had a fucked sense of humor. Her legs started to shake as heat pooled in her core. “Fuck,” she moaned quietly, sinking to the floor. Her whole body felt like it was on fire. She grabbed at her mark, trying the stop the water from hitting it, but it only made it worse, sending hot blades of pleasure down her body.

Her legs spasmed beneath her, completely out of her control, and she let out a small cry. She managed to claw her way up the wall and grab the shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, before sinking back to the floor. Pantene. For some reason that just seemed so _Peter_. She laughed a little to herself, but it turned into a low, throaty moan when she felt another wave of heat fly through her body.

She uncapped the bottle and squeezed the shampoo into her hand. Looking at the gooey, white substance, her mouth started to water. She licked her lips. What was going on with her? What was wrong with her mark? Why was it doing this to her?

She started to slowly massage the shampoo into her head. It felt really good. Too good. Her mark burned, her nipples were so hard its was starting to hurt and she just wanted Peter to barge in and help her finish.

She did her best to ignore it, rinsing out the shampoo and adding conditioner to her ends, then tying her hair up in a topknot with the hair tie on her wrist.

She had to wash her body next. _Fuck_. She started with her arms. Then her legs, though she didn’t get all the way up her thighs before she moved to her back.

Then, after her stomach, she moved her soapy hands down to the apex of her thighs and quickly tried to clean the slick from between her legs. It felt _so good_ , and she could tell that it wasn’t just shower water collecting on the rest of her body now. By the time she finished, she was leaning against the wall panting and shaking.

She poured more body wash into her hands and moved them to her breasts. She had to bite back a scream when her hand came into contact with the small spider. It was like she was touching herself down there, except ten times stronger. She slowly rubbed the soap into her breasts, tears streaming down her face and hips bucking wildly. It was too much. She had never felt anything like this before. She thought the vibration in her body was going to kill her.

She thought about Peter and his abs, thought about running her hands along his chest.

“Peter,” she moaned softly, and a wave of pleasure cascaded over her as she climaxed. “ _Peter Peter Peter Peter Peter_ ,” she chanted, thinking of that mussed up wet hair he had walked out with after his shower. She blacked out for a second, caught up in the pleasure so much that her vision stopped working.

Michelle collapsed against the wall, mumbling incoherently. Her orgasm last night had been nowhere near as strong. Something was definitely wrong with her, she decided. That was not normal.

She quickly rinsed off the rest of the soap and the conditioner in her hair, and turned the water off, grabbing the spare towel hanging next to the shower and furiously drying herself off.

Michelle pulled the sweats up her legs. She was about the same height as Peter, but he was a lot more muscular. God, when did he start working out?

Needless to say, when she pulled the t-shirt over her head it was huge on her. And it smelled like him, too. She felt her nipples start to harden again. How could she possibly still be horny after the orgasm she just had. She hated her body. She hated her stupid soulmark. She hated that she let herself think about her best friend inappropriately.

Michelle walked out of the bathroom. “Hey, Peter?” He looked up. “Do you mind letting me borrow another one of your t-shirts? I need to plop my hair,” she said.

“Yeah—yeah, of course,” he said. He sounded a little flustered as he got up and walked back to his dresser, opening the middle drawer and pulling out an I survived NYC shirt and handing it to her.

Michelle leaned over, shaking out her hair and wrapping it up in the shirt. When she stood back up, she found Peter staring a her, and she realized her shirt had ridden up to expose her stomach and the way his sweats hung low on her hips. She cleared her throat, and his eyes snapped back to her face, cheeks glowing pink. Honestly, teenage boys would literally jump anything.

When they were younger and Peter still had a bunk bed, MJ would sleep on the top, Ned on the bottom, and Peter on the floor with an assortment of blankets and pillows, but now he had a full.

Peter eyed the bed suspiciously. “I can take the floor, M,” he said.

MJ scoffed, “Don’t be ridiculous, Parker. There’s plenty of room on the bed for two people. I’m sleeping on the left, you can have the right.”

“But I always sleep on the left,” he protested.

“I don’t care. You can take the right.”

Peter looked rather uncomfortable at that, but he didn’t argue. Smart boy.

Michelle pulled back the covers and climbed into Peter’s bed. Her cheeks flushed at the thought. She kept reminding herself that they were two _best friends_ having a _sleepover_. Nothing more.

When her head hit the pillow she realized just how tired she was. Last night she was up until midnight with Peter waiting for her mark. Then, after they had hung up, she stayed up thinking of him. Today had been long, too. Not to mention what had just happened in her best friend’s shower (ugh).

Needless to say, she was exhausted, and so, it seemed, was Peter, whose breathing turned heavy almost immediately after he closed his eyes. But not before he let out a final, “Happy Birthday, M.”

MJ buried her nose in her pillow and took a deep breath. Her eyes shot open. Fuck, it smelled like him. Now she wished she had just let him take his side of the damn bed. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply. Quicker than she ever could have expected, she drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, constructive criticism, and conversations are much appreciated.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl. I'll be posting sneak peaks of upcoming chapters and answering prompts and questions on that platform.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ learns more about her mark and there's a hotel pool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided I want to try and update Sunday nights.

She woke up warm and comfortable, nestling into the warm body under her.

_Wait._

She opened her eyes. It was still dark outside, which wasn’t surprising considering it was the middle of January, but then she turned her head to look down. She was on top of Peter, the only thing separating them from being skin to skin was her (his) thin t-shirt.

She had a ridiculous urge to reach out and run her fingers through his hair (it looked really soft), but she restrained herself. Then, when she moved her hips, Peter let out a soft groan, and she realized three very important things all at once. She was wet (she couldn’t remember her dream but she had a bad feeling she knew what kind of dream it was), she was on top of Peter, and this was very, _very_ not okay. She screamed.

Peter’s eyes flew open and he shot up to a seated position, accidentally throwing MJ to the end of the bed. “Oh, shit, M. I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled, completely embarrassed. Why couldn’t she have just quietly removed herself from him? Why did her traitorous mouth have to open and ruin everything? Wasn’t the rest of her body bad enough?

“What time is it?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. Michelle watched the muscles move under his skin with the movement.

She pried her eyes away and checked the clock. “6:56,” she said. “We need to get up at 7:00 anyway. Might as well get it over with.” Peter was looking at her curiously. “Just say it,” Michelle said, dreading the worst.

What he said next, however, was not what she was expecting. “You make a good blanket.”

MJ stared at him. Then started giggling like crazy, falling into his arms which quickly wrapped around her to steady her. It was all just so ridiculous: waking up to find herself tangled up with her best friend. It would be a great story to tell someday. Definitely not now, but maybe someday.

Her forehead was resting between his pecs as her shoulders shook with silent laughter. She looked up at him, tears leaking out the corners of her eye, to find him grinning down at her. Without thinking she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. “Thanks for making that not horrible,” she mumbled into his skin. He chuckled.

Then she remembered he was literally only wearing boxers, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. She pulled back and cleared her throat. “We should, um—we should probably get ready for school,” she said.

Peter cracked a smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He made to get up and MJ shifted off his lap, face and chest slightly red.

Michelle pulled Peter’s sweats off, trusting the shirt to cover herself as Peter rummaged through his drawers to pull out the appropriate clothing. “Hey, Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“I can get away with wearing the same jeans two days in a row, but I think I should probably borrow one of your shirts, and, um,” god, this was embarrassing, “can I maybe borrow some deodorant?”

“Oh, yeah, no problem at all.” Peter was still digging through his dresser. “Deodorant is in the bathroom next to the sink and shirts are second drawer from the top. Have at it.” He pulled on a pair of jeans and turned to smile at her. Then it disappeared as he saw she wasn’t wearing any pants.

Michelle could feel herself heating up, so she quickly grabbed her bralette and jeans and rushed to the bathroom.

Only after putting it on did she realize that, in her haste to get away from Peter, she hadn’t grabbed a shirt. She looked at herself in the mirror, making sure he wouldn’t be able to see the spider, and steeled herself before walking back into his room.

Peter looked up as she entered, and his eyes dropped to her breasts. He couldn’t see it, could he? The lighting in the bathroom wasn’t the best, and her bralette was white. She decided to try and play it off. “Parker, I know you’ve never seen a girl in her bra before, but it’s rude to stare.”

“wha—I wasn’t! I mean, I was, but it’s not like that!” He spluttered. At least his eyes were back on her face. She walked past him, still gaping like a fish, and opened the second drawer to find over fifteen shirts, all with a different math or science pun. She rummaged through the shirts to find the least offensive one, finally settling on a _find x, here it is_ t-shirt and pulling it over her head. Since it was still rather large on her slim frame, she pulled it up and tied a not in the front just over her bellybutton.

When she looked back up at him, he was grinning like an idiot. “What?” She asked.

“Your soulmark isn’t anywhere on your stomach or back,” he said. “Is it really on your ass?”

“I am not telling you anything about that,” MJ muttered, shaking her head but trying to suppress a grin nonetheless. At least he didn’t see it (but he was looking).

——————————————————————————

When MJ sat down at their lunch table, she was not expecting to look up and find everyone staring at her. “What?” She asked, thoroughly confused.

Betty leveled an unimpressed look at her. “That’s Peter’s shirt, MJ. Why are you wearing Peter’s shirt?”

She looked down. “Oh, the heating went out at my apartment so I slept with Peter.”

Cindy raised her eyebrows and gave Betty a pointed look. Betty sighed and leaned down to dig through her backpack, coming back up with a crumpled twenty dollar bill and leaning across the table to hand it to Cindy.

“Wait. What’s going on here,” Michelle said.

“Cindy bet me you and Peter would, _you know_ , before the end of the school year,” Betty started.

“And you did,” Cindy added, “so I win.”

_Shit._

Michelle felt her face grow hot. “No!” She cleared her throat. Everyone was looking at her now. “Um, no, we didn’t sleep together, god, you guys. I stayed over at his house because I couldn’t go back to mine. We slept in the same room. That is literally all the happened.”

Cindy let out a disappointed sigh and handed the twenty back to Betty.

Michelle looked between them. “Wait, is that why you said Peter might be my soulmate? To get us to, uh, to do it?” Cindy’s guilty look gave her away. “Oh my god, you guys. Please never attempt this again.” She flipped them off for good measure.

“What was that for?” MJ looked behind her to see Peter approaching the table, a curious expression on his face.

Fuck.

Cindy opened her mouth to say something but MJ cut her off, “Nothing, Parker. They were just pissing me off. Drop it.”

Thank god Ned wasn’t there. He probably would have told Peter the second he had a chance. She could feel her face flushing again. _Damnit_.

Peter just shrugged and pushed her to the left a few inches so he could squeeze in next to her. Betty gave her a pointed look, eyes flashing between her face and where her shoulder and arm touched Peter’s. Michelle flipped her off again.

—————————————————————————

January, February, and March came and went. The snow started to melt, and MJ started to get used to her tattoo. After that first night at Peter’s house, the showers hadn’t been so bad. She did learn, though, that she had to be careful about touching her mark. If she so much as accidentally brushed it her loins would start to burn and she’d have to take a brief intermission from actually showering to get herself off.

She was embarrassed to admit to herself that happened at least once a week. She hated soulmates and their stupid tattoos. She felt like she couldn’t talk to anyone about what she was going through. She had tried to broach the subject with her mom, but had learned nothing. For all she knew, no one experienced the same insufferable sex drive she did.

Just like her to somehow have fucked up something predestined by the universe. Stupid soulmark.

That’s how she found herself in Mr. Miln’s health class halfway through April, no longer able to lean her head on her left hand, lest it brush against her soulmark. She had her sketchbook out and was sketching Flash sleeping in the corner, drooling on his notebook when Mr. Miln called the class to attention.

“7th period, listen up, this is the class you’ve all been waiting for.” A loud snore came from the corner, and MJ caught Peter’s eye as they both tried not to laugh. “Flash! Keep your eyes open, please.”

Flash lifted his head off his desk. “Huh?”

“Eyes. Open,” Mr. Miln repeated, clearly irritated. “Today we’ll be talking about soulmates.” MJ rolled her eyes. This would be interesting. She looked back down at her sketchbook. “Now, as I’m sure all of you are aware, everyone has a soulmate, someone who is supposed to be perfect for you.

“Clearly, that doesn’t always work out, but in most cases, soulmates are happy with their predestined partner.” Michelle bit back a humorless laugh at that. Mr. Miln continued, “Everyone will get their soulmark at midnight on their seventeenth birthday, usually it represents at least one of the people in that particular soul bond.” A spider. Michelle was pretty sure she didn’t want to meet the person represented by a fucking spider.

MJ started to drown out Mr. Miln and focused more on her sketch. This one was of Peter with his head in his hand, mouth hanging open a little as he stared at the projector at the front of the classroom. But then something caught her attention.

“Sometimes soulmates can experience strong sexual desire, even before they know who their soulmate is. This is usually stimulated by touching the soulmark, and can even be known to bring the person to climax solely from attention to the mark.”

A fit of giggles broke out across the classroom, but Michelle wasn’t laughing. Her old, fat health teacher was describing exactly what she had been going through for the last three months. She looked over at Peter, who was now sitting forward in his chair, suddenly much more interested in what Mr. Miln had to say. MJ couldn’t blame him, she knew it probably sounded pretty interesting. Unless, of course, it was something you were experiencing.

“Stop laughing,” Mr. Miln snapped. “Strong erogenous marks are the sign of true mates, a very rare occurrence. For true mates, it is impossible to resist the pull of the bond. They are equals, perfect matches for each other, and they always produce prodigal heirs.”

Fuck. That wasn’t good. How was she supposed to ignore her soulmate if she truly was a true mate? She resolved that she would be the first true mate to break the cycle the universe had set. She noticed Peter giving her a funny look, and she realized she was scowling.

_Wrinkles,_ he mouthed. She scowled deeper, flipping him off under the table. He just laughed quietly and turned back to the board. She caught herself smiling, and turned back to the board too.

“Now, with soulmates consent is necessary, but with true mates, it’s a little trickier. Once the bond is realized between two true mates, it is impossible to ignore the urge to procreate, since they are made for each other to create the perfect offspring, so consent is technically not possible.” MJ’s head snapped up at that. _Rape_ , that’s what it was. Rape. This was bad. Really, really bad. She felt sick to her stomach. She was going to puke.

Everyone met their soulmate (or true mate) sometime in their life. Michelle just hoped she had a long time before that point. Maybe she would meet them when she was eighty. That sounded okay. They couldn’t possibly have forced sex as eighty-year-olds.

“Because of the purpose of procreation, true mates will find one another by the time they’re twenty five.” _Mother fucker_. “Soulmates, however, can meet at any point in their lives.”

Why couldn’t she have just had a normal soulmate? She didn’t feel special at all. She felt violated, if that was even possible when it came to knowledge.

“Just like soulmates, true mates will only know they have found their match when both parties have seen the other person’s tattoo. True mates can also feel the other’s sexual desire, although it is not very strong when neither or only one of them has their tattoo” Mr. Miln looked out to the class. “Questions? Yes, Flash.”

Flash looked from the projector to Mr. Miln. “What happens when one true mate is under eighteen and one is older. Is that considered pedophilia?” He snickered into his hand.

“Ew, gross, Flash,” said Lee from her spot at the front of the classroom.

“Detention,” said Mr. Miln in a bored tone. Flash started to argue but Mr. Miln cut him off, “Speak and I’ll make it two detentions.” He turned to the rest of the class. “Alrighty, folks, Pair off with the person next to you and come get this Venn diagram and word bank. I don’t think I need to explain the activity to you as I’m hoping you all know what a Venn diagram is.”

MJ looked over at Peter, who was already walking to the front to pick up worksheets for them. She used the time to pull their desks together, and by the time she was done, he was back. He sat down at his desk and passed her one of the papers.

“So, was it just me or was all that true mate stuff, like, really creepy?” He said. Michelle could have hugged him for that. She was so happy he understood, even if he didn’t know she thought she was a true mate.

“Yeah. It sounded an awful lot like rape to me,” she replied.

They fell silent, and spent the next ten minutes working on the diagram. After that, they just made fun of Flash. With two minutes to the bell, Mr. Miln asked them to turn in their papers.

“Great job today, class. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @caramel-health, and have a great day. Dismissed.”

MJ rolled her eyes. Without fail, Mr. Miln had plugged his twitter handle everyday this year, and even when they had a sub, he left it in the day’s notes.

As the rest of the students filed out of the class, MJ lagged behind. Peter looked back at her, but she just waved him on and mouthed go.

When everyone had left, Michelle walked up to Mr. Miln. “Um, I just had a question about—about true mates.”

He looked up at her. “Shoot.”

“Is there any way to, um, to suppress the… the sex drive?”

He looked at her with pity. “You think you are one, don’t you?” He asked. She nodded her head slowly. Mr. Miln took a deep breath, “No, Michelle. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear. It should lessen after the first round of sexual intercourse, but other than that…” He shook his head solemnly.

Michelle swallowed thickly, blinking back tears. There was no hope. The only thing she could do was try and live life to the fullest while she still could. She nodded with a quiet thank you and turned to leave the room.

“Michelle,” Mr. Miln said. “There has not been one case where true mates didn’t work out.”

She shook her head and kept walking.

——————————————————————————

The rest of the school year went by in a blur.

Michelle tried her best to never touch her mark, she really did, but it seemed to grow more and more sensitive as time went on. The worst was when Peter had given her a hug after they won nationals again and the mark had burned hotter than it ever had before. She had fallen into him panting and shaking. He held her, asked her if she was okay, if she needed water. She hadn’t been able to talk. Her knees were weak, the only thing holding her up were Peter’s muscled arms wrapped around her waist. Her whole body felt like it was on fire and she couldn’t get back to the hotel fast enough. When everyone went to sleep after the long day, she brought her hands up to her left breast and stroked the spider until she quietly came. Thank god no one had woken up.

She got up and went to the bathroom, quickly changing into her bikini and sneaking down to the hotel pool. It wouldn’t close for another two hours, so she wasn’t in a huge rush. She just needed to clear her head and be alone for a bit.

She wasn’t in the pool for five minutes when she heard the door open and Peter’s voice said, “Oh, you’re here too. Couldn’t sleep?”

MJ shook her head, leaning back to float on top of the water. One glance at Peter and she saw that he was still ripped as hell, so she closed her eyes. She couldn’t deal with that right now, not in the state she was in. She felt the pool ripple as he slid into the water, then felt him grab her ankles and slowly start to drag her around the pool. It was oddly calming, and Michelle just let go of the tension and tried to relax.

After a few minutes, Peter tapped her ankle and she lifted her head out of the water, but that caused her to sink, and she floundered for a moment until Peter grabbed her and pulled her around to his back. She looped her arms around his back, wrapped her legs around his waist, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Peter took a deep breath. “Remember what Mr. Miln said that day about true mates?” He asked. Michelle stiffened, tightening her hold on her best friend’s neck.

“Yeah. What about it,” she asked carefully.

“I think I am one,” he blurted. She could feel his stomach muscles tense beneath her legs.

“One what?” She couldn’t assume. She needed to hear him say it.

“A true mate,” he said, so quietly she could barely hear him. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t alone, Peter was like her, or at least he thought he was. “I know I don’t have my mark yet, but I can feel them, Michelle, and it’s really fucking weird. I don’t know if I like it. One moment I’ll be fine and the next I feel this shiver running through my body. It’s kind of the worst, to be honest,” he laughed softly.

“I think I’m one, too,” she said. “Whenever I touch my mark I feel the same way. I’m actually surprised I’m not losing it right now, considering the piggyback ride you’re giving me at the moment.

“I guess that means we’re not each other’s true mates then,” Peter said. Michelle felt a pang of sadness low in her gut at the words, but just nodded against his neck. “Well,” he said, “next time I get randomly horny in class, you can cover for me.”

Michelle laughed. “Ditto.”

“You know what else that means, M?” He asked. She hummed. “It means your mark really isn’t on your ass.”

“Shut up, Parker.”

————————————————————————

Soon after that, the school year was over. Michelle said goodbye to everyone even though she knew she’d be seeing them over the summer, and she, Peter, and Ned walked down the steps of the school entrance arm in arm, laughing and talking about what the summer held for them.

“I’m so glad we’re done with AP Bio,” Peter said. “I don’t think I could look at another picture of a cell with spontaneously combusting.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Pete. Remember you signed up to take AP Chem with me next year,” Michelle reminded him.

Peter grinned at her and her heart did a little backflip. “Nah, that’ll be easy,” he said.

Ned gave Peter a funny look. “Dude, you’re crazy, you know that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets his mark.

MJ sat next to her phone, waiting to get the call from Peter. It was August 9th, and Peter would be getting his mark at midnight tonight.

She stood up quickly and leaned over to gather her hair and put it up in a messy bun with the hair tie on her wrist.

Her phone buzzed. She picked it up. It was a text from Peter.

Peter: _Ready?_

Michelle: _It’s your fucking soulmark, weirdo. I don’t need to be ready._

Peter: _Touche._

Then her phone started ringing. She swiped right and brought the phone up to her ear. “Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied.

MJ took a deep breath. “So, how are you feeling?”

She heard rustling on the other end of the line. Then, “Nervous.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, on the bright side, you know more about your soulmark than most people do at this point,” Michelle said.

“Yeah. I know I’ll get a boner if someone touches it. Great silver lining right there, M. Good job, gold star, two enthusiastic thumbs up,” Peter said mockingly.

“Calm down, it doesn’t just trigger willy nilly when some random person touches it. You just have to be careful about you touching it. Or your soulmate, I guess.” Michelle put her phone on speaker and set it down next to her on her bed. “You’ll be fine, Parker. I’ve been dealing with this shit since January. You’ll get used to it.” She leaned over to look at the time. “Two minutes, Peter.”

“My god, it feels like it’s been ten minutes,” Peter complained. “Anything else I should know in the time we have left?”

Michelle thought for a second. “Showering’s an absolute bitch.”

Pause. “What do you mean?”

She let out a humorless laugh. “You’ll see.”

“Well, I’ve already showered today, so I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.” Pause. “Shit, we have thirty seconds,” Peter said. “Fuck, I’m nervous.”

Michelle was nervous too, for some unknown reason. Her leg was bouncing against the floor and her palms were starting to sweat. She looked at the clock. Ten seconds.

Nine.

She heard rustling on Peter’s end and she knew he was switching to speakerphone.

Seven.

Michelle tried to steady her breathing. She really shouldn’t be this nervous. Why was she so nervous?

Four.

“Okay,” Peter said. “Okay, I can do this.” More rustling, then, “Hey, M?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“I don’t want to know.”

MJ’s alarm went off. She waited. Looked at her nails. Crossed her legs. Uncrossed them.

One minute.

Two minutes.

She got impatient. “Peter, did you find it?”

“Yeah.” He took a shuddering breath. “It’s—it’s beautiful.”

MJ’s heart sank. She kew she wasn’t Peter’s soulmate, but his audible confirmation still hurt. His tattoo couldn’t be a spider, not with how he reacted to it. _Beautiful_ , he’d said. Beautiful.

“What is it?” She asked quietly. She wanted to know. She didn’t want to know.

Silence.

“Peter?” Her heart was racing.

“I, uh, I don’t think I’m ready to share it just yet.”

Oh. Was she… disappointed?

He was her best friend but he didn’t feel like he could tell her about his mark? After over a year of joking about it, he was backing out. _You backed out too_ , she reminded herself.

She was still disappointed. Peter actually wanted a soulmate—true mate, whatever—and she would be forced to be with hers. Would she and Peter drift apart? She didn’t know if she could bear it. Ned was great, sure, but Peter was her closest friend, her confidant, and she could feel herself losing him and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

She realized Peter was still talking. “You were right, M.”

“About what?” She asked. She hadn’t said anything out loud, had she?

“That night you got your mark,” Peter replied. “When you said you got attached. You were right. I can feel them now, M. It’s amazing. Like my heart is beating for two people.” He sounded so in awe. Michelle envied him, she envied the ability to find beauty in loving someone you’ve never met.

All she felt was bitterness. “I’m glad you like it, Pete.”

“If I told you my tattoo was on my ass, would you believe me?” She barked out a laugh. How he could make her laugh even when she was miserable, she didn’t know. God, she loved him.

_Shit._

She loved him. Shit shit shit shit. This was bad. This was really, really bad. Sure, she’d been attracted to him. But up until now, it had been just that: physical attraction.

What should she say? “Shut up, Parker.”

“You love it,” he teased.

 _I do_ , MJ thought. _I really do._ Fucking hell, what was wrong with her? “Don’t make me come over there. I _will_ castrate you if I need to.”

Peter laughed. “Well, on that happy note, it’s past midnight. We should probably get to bed. Ned wants a new hat so we’re going to the mall tomorrow. And then we’re having a sleepover for my birthday, remember? Hey, I’ll be able to show you my mark at the sleepover. I just—I can’t right away, you know?” His voice sounded strained, but MJ couldn’t pinpoint why that would be. He said he loved his soulmark, what else was there to say?

But now was not the time. Michelle could admit that she was, in fact, exhausted, so she put on an oversized t-shirt and sweats (she had been wearing variations of this outfit to bed since her sleepover with Peter), and climbed under the covers with her book.

She always read a little before bed, it helped her sleep better. If she didn’t, she would have nightmares about her father hitting mom, leaving them with nothing when her mom got sick. Nightmares that she would be thrown into the same situation, worse now that she knew she was a true mate to some random person.

What if her soulmate was abusive and cruel? Her mom couldn’t leave her dad, what if she couldn’t either? She felt so trapped in her own body. She loved someone she could never be with.

Her life was so fucked.

Michelle shook her head and opened her book.

————————————————————————

She hadn’t been reading for twenty minutes when she felt her eyes start to droop, so she quickly slid her bookmark between the pages and set _Pride and Prejudice_ (a personal favorite) on her nightstand.

Michelle separated her sheet from her comforter—it was too hot to use both—and pulled her sheets over her body. She was so tired, but as she closed her eyes and waited, she didn’t fall asleep.

She just lay there for a while, staring at her wall, trying desperately to drift off. Tomorrow was going suck balls if she didn’t get any sleep. She was tired, why couldn’t she just sleep?

MJ turned over in her bed. And then she felt it: a subtle burning sensation pouring from her left breast—her tattoo—down to her core. “Fuck,” she cried. _“Why?”_

She could feel her core clenching, the sensation of hot water running down her body. She gasped as she rubbed her thighs together, trying to create some sort of friction. She tried to get out of her bed, but was tangled in her sheets so she fell to the floor with a loud thump.

“Michelle, are you okay in there?” Her mom yelled from the sitting room.

Shoot, she must have woken her up when she fell from the bed. “Yeah, I’m f-fine. I’m just gonna get in t-the shower!” She called through small gasps.

Her clit was throbbing, she couldn’t think straight. She needed to turn the water on before her mom heard her. She grabbed onto the door frame of her bathroom, trying with all her might to keep herself upright, her knees were shaking so badly and she could feel herself dripping down onto her thighs, her juices sending sparks to her core. At the same time, she could feel the energy flying off her to her other half, as though the pleasure was soaking into their skin as well as hers.

Michelle reached out and turned on the faucet, the sound of water moving quickly through the pipes filled her ears as she clung to the towel bar. She could maybe stay here until the water heated up.

Her legs buckled. Or maybe not. The floor was okay.

She reached down and started to tug off her sweats. She was so hot, she needed to get out of these damn clothes. Her shaking fingers managed to get underneath the waistband of her pants, and she practically ripped them off.

The humid night air didn’t do much for her heated skin, but it was better than nothing. She felt water droplets start to land on her bare legs and looked over to see that she hadn’t closed the shower curtain. Great. She really was bad at masturbating—how was that even possible. Almost nothing had gone correctly today, actually.

She could feel water running through her hair and dripping down onto her forehead even though she was out of the shower. Her soulmate must be taking a shower. Fucking hell, how had this never happened before? Unless her soulmate was a hobo.

Michelle blanched as she reached down to grasp the hem of her shirt. Had her soulmate felt everything she’d been doing for the past eight months? God, that would be so embarrassing. She pulled the oversized shirt over her head and threw it across the bathroom.

She felt a phantom hand trail down her tattoo, and it sent waves of heat down to her already burning sex.

MJ crawled over to the shower and pulled herself in, moaning as the first wave of water cascaded over her quivering form.

She curled up on her right side and let the water run over her soulmark as she let her hand trail down the planes of her stomach and part her lips. She cried out when she found her clit, rubbing furiously as she squeezed her eyes shut.

In her mind’s eye she saw Peter as she had that day she had woken up on top of him, sleep-mussed hair and bare chest. The way her soulmark had tingled as she’d lain there watching him in the moment before she’d screamed. That moment when she’d decided she wouldn’t run her fingers through his hair, a decision she regretted dearly now.

She moved to lay on her back, legs splayed out to the sides, then bending back in to meet the confines of her small shower. Her dark skin gleamed with water droplets as her chest heaved.

Her fingers moved down toward her entrance. She’d never done this before. Slowly, ever so slowly, she eased one finger inside. Her hips bucked up into her hand, begging for more, but her fingers were only so long, and a soft, low moan broke from her lips. She pumped her finger in and out, at first taking it slow, then speeding up a bit. It went from awkward to something she never wanted to stop doing in less than thirty seconds, her body stretching slightly to accommodate her small finger, and at the same time she knew she was built for more.

The hair in her bun was soaked but she didn’t care. She was so close.

She imagined him chanting her name: _M, M, M_. She remembered that small groan, when she had accidentally moved her hips against his, and she came undone, body shuddering with the force of her climax as she called his name.

What would her soulmate say, when they found out she wanted someone else?

And why did she even care? Fuck them. She didn’t want anything to do with them. She felt her eyes start to water nonetheless, and when she closed them, tears streamed down the sides of her face.

A little while later, she reached up to turn the water off. Then she just laid down and closed her eyes, finally finding the sleep she had been craving.

——————————————————————————

The next morning she awoke cold, with damp hair, and still in the shower. Her neck and back ached. Scratch that, her whole body was sore.

She pushed herself to a seated position. She had a lot to do today before she went to Peter’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepover at Peter's!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this last night, but then I fell asleep lol. Sorry for the wait, however short it was.

May answered the door when MJ arrived at Peter’s apartment. She smiled and gave a graceful little nod, moving to the side and motioning her in.

Michelle basically ran to Peter’s room. He turned as she entered, but not fast enough to stop her from tackling him to the ground. She rolled off him quickly and looked over at Ned, who was trying to hold in his laughter.

“Was that really necessary?” Peter complained.

“Yes,” MJ replied. “Happy Birthday, Loser.” She took off her bag and set it down at the foot of the bed. “Hey, Ned. Nice hat”

“Thanks, MJ,” Ned said, tipping said hat at her. She rolled her eyes. Typical.

“So, are we going to play Cards Against Humanity, or what?” Peter said excitedly. “You did bring it, right?”

“Yes, Peter, I brought it,” Michelle said, kneeling down to dig through her bag. She found the box and pulled it out, tossing it onto the floor by her friends, and moved to sit down next to them, forming a small circle around the playing cards. “Ten bucks that Ned wins.” She removed two fives from her wallet and put them in the middle of their circle.

“Hold on,” Peter said, moving to grab his wallet and pull out a ten.

“Do I have to bet against myself?” Ned whined.

“Yes,” She and Peter said at the same time, though MJ’s version was much more aggressive.

Ned sighed and dropped a ten onto the floor in front of him.

———————————————————————————

They played for four hours, scream-laughing the whole time. So much so that MJ’svoice started to get a little raspy after hour two.

Michelle walked away with the thirty dollars because Ned did, in fact, win. No one really knew how he had gotten so good a Cards Against Humanity, but he was brilliant at it.

Peter yawned loudly. “Alright, bedtime,” Ned announced.

“But we haven’t watched a movie yet,” MJ argued.

“Yeah, Ned. It’s only 10:30.” Peter’s point was somewhat undermined by the second large yawn escaping his body, his arms flexing as he leaned back. Michelle tried to pretend she didn’t follow the movement with her eyes. God, his arms looked so lick-able.

_Wait, what?_

Ned leveled a look at Peter. “Michelle looks like a raccoon that just walked out of a dumpster, and you fell asleep _standing up_ on the subway when we were headed to the mall this morning. I don’t know what you two were doing last night, but you both look like the walking dead.” Ned smiled innocently. “Oh, and since I’m just the best-est friend ever, I’ll take the couch.”

“Ned, you don’t ha—” Peter started.

“No cuts, no butts, no coconuts,” Ned said. “You two are taking the bed.”

Peter opened his mouth. Closed it. Turned to MJ with pleading eyes. She just shrugged, if Ned wanted to take the couch, then he could take the damn couch. She’d rather sleep in the same bed as Peter than next to Ned anyway.

Peter sighed and looked back at Ned. “Fine, you win. This time,” he said.

Ned gave an excited giggle that had MJ’s eyebrows furrowing, and picked up his bag and waddled out into the sitting room, giving them a wave over his shoulder and a rather conspicuous wink in Peter’s direction that only worked to confuse her further.

“Alright, do you want to shower first or should I?” Peter asked nervously. The lights in the room glinted off his hair. Michelle, once again, wanted to run her fingers through it, but she couldn’t.

Best friend.

Best friend.

_Best friend._

“I can go first,” Michelle answered. Peter nodded so she grabbed her bag and headed to the bathroom.

Thankfully, her shower went off without a hitch, and she had plopped her hair and slid on her oversized t-shirt and sweats in a little under twenty minutes. She looked at herself in the mirror, the white t-shirt on her head stark against her dark skin. She was attractive enough, she supposed. All sharp cheekbones and clear, brown eyes—nothing like Peter’s, though. Her eyes were cold where his were warm and practically melted her insides every time she looked at him.

She sighed, picking up a hand towel to try and wipe some of the condensation off the mirror, and bent down to grab her bag before walking out of the bathroom.

Peter looked up from the book he was reading and smiled. It made his eyes crinkle in a way that made MJ’s knees weak. She wobbled a little as she made her way over to the bed.

Peter’s eyes dropped down her body, then came back up to meet her gaze. “Nice PJs,” he said. “You look delicious.”

Michelle blushed furiously. She thought that was a weird choice of words, but she shrugged it off, looking down at her bare, dark feet. She knew if she read too much into it she would drive herself insane, and she was already half-insane around Peter to begin with.

The creak from the mattress brought her back to reality as Peter unwound fluidly from his seated position on the bed.

Michelle saw red. He had no right—no right to be so attractive doing the simplest things. She bit her lip, brought her wandering eyes back to his face. He was looking at her strangely. She couldn’t figure out what it meant, so she just trudged over to to the left side of the bed—Peter’s side, she remembered—and set her stuff on the floor.

Normally, getting out of the shower was refreshing, but not today. It was too hot and muggy outside; Michelle wished she had brought shorts instead of pants, she was starting to sweat.

The whole night; She had to wear this the whole night and she couldn’t take anything off because she was sleeping in the same bed as Peter, her best friend and—

And she was getting too worked up. She couldn’t do anything about the clothes, so she leaned down and rolled the sweats up her legs as far as she could and grabbed _A Tale of Two Cities_ from her bag, leaning back and setting the bookmark next to her on the bed.

Peter was out in record time. Michelle was surprised he barely had the water on at all.

Minutes later, he was stumbling out of the bathroom in his boxers, water droplets still clinging to tan skin stretched over tight muscles.

Michelle looked up. And froze.

Her eyes zeroed in on his left pec. Her skin felt too tight, and when she tried to breathe, all she could smell was that damned Pantene. All she could smell was him. And it was too much—that urge to be closer.

Because sitting there, just over his heart… a goddamn spider. His soulmark. _Her_ soulmark.

Her _soulmate._

Peter was her soulmate.

“M?” His hair fell onto his forehead and she just wanted to push it out of the way—to run her hands through it and never, ever stop. Her heart squeezed in her chest, and she knew she would combust if she didn’t touch him in that instant.

Her feet moved of their own accord and then she was throwing her arms around him, residual water be damned. “Beautiful?” She quipped. “A fucking spider is beautiful?” She buried her face in his neck. She tried to restrain herself—she really did—from breathing him in. That smell that was fresh and clean and so very _Peter_ that smelling it made her unable to function. “You’re such an idiot, Pete.”

She felt him shrug underneath her arms, felt him smile against her hair, felt his muscles shift underneath her as he brought his arms up to wrap around her too.

But then she remembered what was on his chest, what was on _her_ chest. What that meant. She pulled back, arms slipping over his smooth skin as she brought her hands back to fold across her chest.

What did this mean? This thing between them—this living, breathing bond they shared. What was she supposed to do with this—this mess that was her life.

She took a deep breath and looked back at Peter, meeting his gaze, then dropped her eyes back to that tattoo. She had studied hers enough in the mirror to know they were identical.

She reached out. She wanted to touch it…

Peter gripped her wrist when her hands got a hair’s breadth away. She looked up at him.

“Can’t do that, M. You know what’ll happen.” He dropped her hand, and she let it fall back to her side.

Oh. _Oh_.

Right. How could she have forgotten? She had been living with the same side-effects for months, she just hadn’t been thinking…

No. She hadn’t been thinking, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? She needed to keep a clear head on her shoulders. She had seen Peter’s tattoo but he hadn’t seen the matching one that lived on her chest, dark ink spilling over her chocolate skin. She had to keep it that way. She might like Peter like that—want Peter like that—but he didn’t feel the same way. And once he saw her mark…

Then it would be too late, and she couldn’t do that to him. Couldn’t stomach the idea of forcing something like that on him, not when less than an hour ago she didn’t want anything to do with her soulmate. But now… she had to admit that she didn’t mind it being Peter. Stupid, dorky, intelligent, witty, geeky Peter. It didn’t hurt that he was like walking teenage eye candy, either. God, she needed to stop that train of thought before it got too far. “Yeah, right. Sorry. I—I forgot,” she let out in a strained chuckle.

He just smiled shyly at her, gave her a small shrug, color rising in his cheeks. “Never tell Ned I said this, but he was right—I’m absolutely spent. I, uh, I couldn’t sleep last night, so…” He gestured to the bed with his hands.

MJ nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” Then, just because she felt bad, “I didn’t sleep well, either.”

Peter started moving toward the bed. “Uh-uh, that’s still my side, Spider-Boy,” Michelle said, reaching up to take the t-shirt off her head, curls falling into loose ringlets over her shoulders.

Peter spluttered. “Spider-Boy? Who said anything about—about spiders.” MJ raised her eyebrows, gaze dropping to his chest. He glanced down, “Oh, right. The tattoo.” Then, almost too quietly to hear, “Stupid. Of course she meant the tattoo, idiot.”

MJ scrunched up her face at that. She realized her sweats had fallen down where she had rolled them up, and she reached down to tug them up her legs again. Peter’s eyes followed the movement.

“Are you hot? I know the AC in here isn’t the best.”

“Yeah. You have horrible AC and I have faulty heating,” she said, rolling her eyes. Honestly, what a mother hen—

“Here,” Peter said, getting up and pulling open one of his drawers. He riffled through it and threw a piece of fabric at her. She looked down at it. Boxers. She shrugged and stalked to the bathroom, quickly closing the door behind her, shedding her too-hot sweatpants and donning the boxers. Now was not the time to get embarrassed. She was hot, it was hot out, he was offering her a solution. She felt her face heating anyway. The loose fabric offered a breeze her sweatpants couldn’t, and she thanked the heavens Peter was as observant as he was.

She stepped back into the room, shoving her wadded-up pants into her bag on the way back to the bed. Peter had shoved the comforter down to the foot of the bed, leaving only the sheet covering him. He was already asleep, mouth parted slightly, breathing deep, even breaths.

Watching him sleep, Michelle realized just how tired she really was. She pulled back the sheets, and was out before her head even hit the pillow.

And maybe it was seeing his tattoo, maybe it was that the pillow smelled like him, but Michelle dreamed of Peter. Well, maybe “dreamed” was a strong word... It was more along the lines of critical thinking.

Peter was her soulmate—her true mate. He had showered last night, that she was sure of; even if he had told her he’d already showered—maybe he got curious? And… oh, god. Had he felt very time she had…? That was embarrassing.

She was so warm—not too hot, but… warm. Comfortable. Everything smelled like him, and she thought she might drown in it, that feeling of being surrounded by him.

She opened her eyes. It was still dark out. A look at the clock in front of her told her it was two thirty in the morning. She shifted, only to realize she couldn’t. There were arms around her: one draped over her, the other wrapped underneath her around her waist, and her back was pressed up against a hard body. Peter’s body. She knew she should move, maybe even wake him up, but it just felt so right, so instead she closed her eyes again and snuggled back up against him.

She felt him tense behind her and give a small groan into her ear. She stopped moving. When he relaxed she realized he was still asleep. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then, because she was curious, she started wiggling around in his arms. She wanted to see him.

MJ managed to rotate in his arms, to look at his sleeping face. He looked so peaceful, and even though they were only seventeen, he looked younger somehow—less worried.

Michelle looked down. She was eye-level with his chest, with his tattoo. Her mouth watered. She wanted to kiss it, to lick it—she knew how good it would make him feel, to have that pressure in just the right place. She wanted to do that for him, be that person for him, but she held herself back. It was the tattoo—it was calling to her but she couldn’t. She didn’t have his consent. She settled for leaning her head against his chest. She figured her forehead would be more manageable on his mark than her mouth—but god did she want to use her mouth, to suck on that spider until he was writhing underneath her…

And that was why she couldn’t let him see her matching tattoo. They were young and reckless. Besides, he didn’t want her like that, and once he saw the tattoo, she knew he would feel the same urges—probably even stronger since they would both know then.

He tensed again, hips bucking a bit, but MJ didn’t notice. It was still the ass-crack of dawn and she was already drifting off again, burying her face in his skin, nose scraping across his mark, warm and comfortable and safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain masked hero makes his first real appearance in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple hours sooner than usual but the comments really got to me this week so....

Michelle woke to the sound of a camera clicking and soft snickering. The sun made her head hurt, eyes blinking rapidly.

“I’m sending this to the group chat,” she heard Ned say from somewhere behind her. She yawned into Peter’s chest. _Oh no_ —this was not happening right now. She turned her head to see Ned standing in the doorway, furiously typing away on his phone, grinning like an idiot.

“Ned,” she whined, “please don’t.”

“Too late. It’s already done.”

“Damn you, Ned. It’s too early for this shit,” Michelle complained, though she kept her voice quiet so as not to wake Peter sleeping behind her.

She carefully tried to shimmy out of his grip, successfully turning around to face the edge of the bed, but when she tried to scoot out of his arms she found she couldn’t.

Peter mumbled something and pulled her closer to his chest, arms banding around her waist—going under her shirt—as he buried his nose in the hair at the base of her neck.

MJ felt her cheeks redden as Ned tried and failed to hold in his laughter, letting out a loud cackle that effectively woke Peter up and simultaneously ruined MJ’s morning.

She turned her head and watched as he blinked the sunlight out of his eyes, then looked to Ned, who pointed at MJ, who wanted to sink into the ground and die just to escape the embarrassment she felt crawling like ants under her skin.

Peter looked down at her. He stared for a second—two; then he seemed to realize what he was doing—one hand wrapped around her waist while the other disappeared under her shirt, scraping across her ribs, dangerously close to the undersides of her breasts. “Oh my— _oh my god_ ,” he cried, quickly withdrawing his hands and sitting up. The sheet pooled around his waist, and MJ shivered as her eyes dropped to his chest. To that spider tattoo over his left nipple. Peter covered his face with his hands, tight muscles rippling with the movement. MJ bit her lip.

Click.

“ _Goddamnit, Ned!_ ” Michelle screeched. She grabbed a pillow, soft sheets scraping against the calluses that covered her hands from drawing, and threw it at his head with all her strength.

Ned squawked in outrage. Then seemed to remember what he was doing. “Man, Betty and Cindy are never going to let you guys live this down,” Ned muttered, looking at his phone. “So embarrassing.”

Michelle stumbled out of the bed, grabbing her phone and bag on the way to the bathroom. She flipped them both off for good measure. She slammed the door and collapsed down onto the toilet. Pulling out her phone, she opened up her text messages.

_Four dipshits and a Michelle:_

Ned: _Check it out!_

Ned’s text was followed by a photo of Peter and her. She had her face pressed against chest, his arms were banded around her sleeping form, and his nose was buried in her hair. The sheet had been kicked down to their waists, and Michelle blushed when she realized her shirt had ridden partway up her back. It did look rather incriminating, though it really wasn’t. She scrolled down.

Betty: _WHAT THE FUCK?!?_

Cindy: _I FUCKING KNEW IT ERIJFNCNDLW_

Then there was the other image. The one of Peter’s shirtless chest, abs on full display, hands covering his face. And there she was—obviously looking lower than his face, biting her lip, large t-shirt hanging off her left shoulder, clearly showing she wasn’t wearing a bra.

She opened the other group chat with incoming messages—the one with only Betty and Cindy.

Cindy: _Well, this is a morning I will never forget_

Betty: _The way she was looking at him in that second photo, tho_

Cindy: _I KNOW! MJ with horny eyes is almost scarier than MJ with angry eyes._

Betty: _Someone’s got the hoTS FOR PARKER!!!_

Betty: _MJ, have you locked yourself in the bathroom yet?_

Michelle’s fingers flew furiously across her keyboard.

MJ: _Those were NOT horny eyes._

There was a split second where the bubble icon popped up. Then it disappeared. Reappeared.

Cindy: _They were definitely horny eyes. Betty?_

Betty: _I agree. The council has convened. Michelle Jones has a crush on the nerd next door_.

Betty: _Also, SINCE WHEN HAS PETER BEEN RIPPED???_

Cindy: _Yeah, when the fuck did that happen?_

MJ: _He’s had abs for a while._

Cindy: _You’ve seen him shirtless before?_

Betty: _!!!_

Cindy: _Girl, you are so screwed._

MJ: _Stop trying to kill me. I died, like, twenty minutes ago._

Betty: _But you LOOOOVE him._

Michelle shut off her phone at that. One minute. She would allow one minute of embarrassment, then move on.

She leaned her head back against the wall and groaned, trying to use the cool tile to calm her racing mind. Her eyes fluttered shut, slowly counting down from sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.

The way Peter had reacted, like he was uncomfortable waking up with her. She had been uncomfortable, too, but that was because of Ned. What if Peter was uncomfortable because of her?

Forty-five.

Her skin still felt like it was on fire, mark tingling pleasantly in a way that sent shivers down her spine. She cursed quietly.

Thirty. Twenty-nine.

And maybe the unrequited love was starting to drive her crazy, but she could have sworn he had been breathing her in—he had been asleep, of course, but…

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.

Her whole body cried out at her to tell him, to be with him, to make him feel good—body _and_ soul.

Seven.

But she couldn’t.

Three.

Silence. Resignation. Determination.

One. Zero.

MJ stood up and shucked off her t-shirt and Peter’s boxers, nearly tripping in the tight confines of the bathroom. And maybe she was being selfish, but she shoved the boxers into her bag along with her shirt. Peter wouldn’t miss one pair. But wearing his clothes… it just felt so right, and she decided that after this morning, she would allow herself that small satisfaction. She put her hair up into a ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror. Then, before she could think better, she reached out a finger and touched her tattoo. Hissed. It was so sensitive—so sensitive after a night spent curled up with him. She could feel her heart beating quickly in her ears, but she could also feel the pulsing rhythm of a slower heartbeat; Peter, it seemed, had calmed down more than she had.

She put her clothes on and marched out of the bathroom. “Not a word from you,” she snapped at Ned as she stalked past. Peter had already put on a shirt and shorts, thankfully. She didn’t think she would be able to keep her eyes off that spider tattoo and then Peter might start to get suspicious.

Michelle turned to look at them. “So… the park and then lunch at Delmar’s?” She asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Peter replied, running a hand through his hair. Michelle looked away quickly, lest her eyes track the movement.

Ned noticed, though. He smirked. “Shut up,” MJ quipped.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You said nothing very loudly,” MJ grumbled. Ned just grinned at her. She flipped him off.

————————————————————————

By late August, the heat had become pretty much unbearable, the little air-conditioning units used in the cramped New York apartments no match for the sweltering summer.

Which is why Michelle found herself reading on the fire escape with a fold-out chair, trying and failing to cool down, sweating buckets and hating mother earth.

She turned the page. A small breeze swept through the alley and caught her bookmark. She reached out blindly to catch it before it flew out of reach of the fire escape. Just as she caught it, upper body leaning over the railing, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead, she felt hands come to steady her waist.

MJ screeched and whipped around, punching her attacker straight in the face.

Spider-man stumbled backward, hand reaching up to cup his masked jaw, and cried, “What the hell was that for?” His voice was clearly being altered by mask. Another way to protect his identity, she guessed.

Michelle shook out her wrist. “You touched me.”

Spider-man’s eyes widened. He reached his hand up as if to run it through his hair, but he was wearing a mask. “I was trying to help!” He said indignantly, bringing his arm back down and crossing them both over his chest. “I thought you were going to fall.”

“I wasn’t even off balance,” MJ quipped. She reached to push some stray curls off her sweaty forehead, then eyed his suit. “Shouldn’t you be dying in that thing? It’s, like, over a hundred degrees out today.”

“Built-in cooling technology,” he said, leaning against the railing. Michelle rolled her eyes; she supposed he thought it looked cool. It did, but that was beside the point.

“Lucky you,” she snarked. “I’d kill for that on a day like today.” She motioned to her sweaty face.

“The sweat suites you, darling,” he said, white eyes shifting down her body.

Michelle’s face reddened. “Oh my god, that’s disgusting. You could be _forty_ —and if you touch me again, _I swear_ —”

Spider-man’s eyes widened in shock. “No—I’m not forty! I’m a boy—I mean—young man!”

Michelle raised her eyebrows. “How old are you, exactly?” She asked. She waited a moment. “If you don’t answer I’m going to assume you’re older than thirty, which is still creepy, by the way.”

“I’m not, okay?” He said. She waited. “…I’m seventeen.”

MJ furrowed her brows at that. She was seventeen. She could know him. “Okay,” she said.

“You believe me?”

“Do I have a reason not to?” She arched a brow at him, a small smile tugging on the corners of her lips.

He shook his head furiously. “All I’m trying to say is you’re still really pretty, even with all the…perspiration.”

She looked at him more closely; something about him seemed familiar, the way he talked, or the way he held himself—maybe she really did know him from school. “Thanks, I guess. You’re not too bad yourself for a teenager wearing a spandex unitard.”

His hand slipped from the railing, and he stumbled to keep his footing. MJ’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter as she watched him, forgetting for a moment how hot out it was. “It’s not _spandex_!”

Michelle reached out and touched his arm. He froze. She chuckled. “It sure feels like spandex.”

“Well, it’s not,” he said a bit defensively. He nodded to her book. “What are you reading?”

“ _A Secret History_ by,” she checked the cover, “Donna Tartt.”

He nodded. “Is it any good?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, I’ve actually read it before, though. I ran out of new books and I’m too lazy to go to the library so I just picked up an old one.” She shrugged.

“Maybe I’ll go get it after the superhero gig tonight,” he said. She held out the book to him. He just looked at her, then at the book. “What?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was offering for you to borrow it, dipshit.”

His eyes widened again—it was actually a little creepy how they dilated; like, how did they know when to dilate? “Really?” He squeaked, reaching out to grab the book.

She pulled her hand back. “You’re not a serial killer, are you?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“What? No, I’m a superhero,” he said, still holding his hand out. “Why is that part of the vetting process for borrowing one of your books?” He made little grabby motions with his fingers.

“I feel like being a serial killer goes hand-in-hand with ruining borrowed books,” she said, narrowing her eyes. She handed him the book. “But if you damage it, I’ll kill you—friendly neighborhood Spider-man my ass.”

“Who’s the killer now?” He joked. Then he tilted his head to the side. “Well, I’ve got to go. Duty calls!” He reached his arm out and shot a web, swinging off the balcony with the book in his other hand.

“Don’t you dare drop it!” She called after his retreating form. She shook her head, not sure why she was smiling.

———————————————————

Michelle saw Spider-man again two days later. She was out reading on the fire escape again when he landed with a soft thud. She didn’t look up right away, determined to finish one last page.

He cleared his throat.

“I know you’re there,” she said.

“Oh.”

MJ let out a hum, reaching blindly for her bookmark and slipping it between the pages of her book. She looked up at him. “What do you want, Spider-pig?” She smiled to herself at her inside joke, remembering that day in biology with Peter.

He held her copy of _A Secret History_ out to her. “I finished. It was really good—I can see why you enjoyed it.” She took the book from his hands, peering at him from her chair. His eyes narrowed at her.

“What do you want? I can tell you want something,” she deadpanned.

“What should I call you?” He hopped up onto the railing. Her eyes widened a fraction watching him. He chuckled, “I’m not going to fall. Spider-man, remember?” He mimed shooting webs out of his wrists in rapid succession.

“You can call me Michelle.”

“Really? Your friends call you Michelle?” He swung his feet back and forth, leaning back over the railing so his body hung precariously over the alleyway below to grab a piece of garbage floating in the breeze.

“No. I have a nickname, but you can call me Michelle.” She didn’t just let anybody call her M or MJ, and just because he could swing around the city on wisps of silk didn’t mean he deserved special treatment from her.

He huffed a breath. “Fair enough. You look nice today. How have you been?”

Wow, that was a lot to unpack. She looked nice? She was wearing a ratty old painting shirt that hung below her knees and her hair was up in a topknot. How had she been? Well—

She decided to ignore the first comment. “I’ve been fine. I painted today so now my back hurts, but beauty is pain, right?” She said, gesturing to her paint-stained t-shirt.

“You have paint on your face,” was his only reply. He leaned forward, reaching his hand out toward her cheek, “Here, let me.” He brushed his finger over where she assumed the paint was, but then his eyes narrowed and he ran a finger over the spot again.

“It won’t come off, Idiot. It’s dry.” She smirked at him as he withdrew his hand.

“You didn’t punch me,” he breathed.

She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t. Don’t get too comfortable, though—I might be in a bad mood next time you try to pull shit like that.” She mimed a quick sucker punch, then blew on her fist as if to cool it off.

Spider-man laughed at her antics. “You could give most common criminals a run for their money, you know.”

She shrugged, looking down at her hands. The paint under her fingernails seemed way more interesting than it had earlier that day when she had opted not to spend twenty minutes cleaning it out. “I learned from experience. My dad—” She stopped herself before she could say anything more. That was too much information; information she hadn’t even told her best friends, that she definitely did not want to tell an almost-stranger.

She was saved by a ding coming from next to her on the chair. She picked up her phone.

_Four dipshits and a Michelle:_

Ned: _Has anyone seen Peter? We were supposed to meet to build the millennium falcon._

MJ snorted. She quickly typed out a reply.

MJ: _Nope. He probably stayed late at the stupid Stark internship._

MJ: _Also, you’re both total dweebs._

She looked up to see that Spider-man wasn’t sitting on the railing anymore. She almost had a heart-attack when she heard a voice right next to her ear. “Peter… Peter Parker?”

She squawked, turning around to see him upside down in an army-crawl position on the wall behind her. “Never,” she panted, “do that again.” Then his words registered. “Wait, you really know him?”

Spider-man propped his head up on his elbows. “Yeah, I know him—from the, uh, the Stark internship—which, by the way, is not stupid.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s rude to read someone else’s messages.”

“Well, I got to go,” he said suddenly. “I have somewhere I need to be.” He shot a web to the roof of the building next to hers and launched himself off the fire escape, disappearing as quickly as he’d come. Michelle looked down at the book in her lap. “Hey!” She looked up to see a red and white mask peering at her from above. “What book are you reading?!”

“ _The Assistant_ by Bernard Malamud!” She called back.

He gave her a thumbs up and disappeared again.

She waited, but he didn’t come back a second time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of senior year. (This chapter isn't as exciting as some of the others, in fact, I just finished writing one of my favorite scenes, but it's important set up for future chapters I have yet to write!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!
> 
> The nice comments and bribery with fake money (you know who you are) have convinced me to do an extra update this week! It's a shorter one (only about 1.5k words) but that's only because I will still be updating Sunday night.
> 
> Enjoy!

The next day was the first day of senior year, which meant Michelle had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn. She practically fell out of bed and trudged to the bathroom, dragging her feet with every step, and when she looked in the mirror, she cursed quietly under her breath. She looked like death. To be fair, she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. A few hours after Spider-man left, Peter had decided to take a shower, and his mark had flared again. She couldn’t really blame him—he did a pretty good job controlling it for the most part, and to be fair, it still happened to her, too.

She brushed her teeth and ran her fingers through her hair, deciding she would just leave it loose today. Throwing her clothes on, she went out into the kitchen and made herself a bowl of cereal.

She greeted Betty and Cindy when she got to home room. Home rooms were split by gender: girls in some rooms, boys in others, so there was never a chance that Peter or Ned would be in her home room. Thankfully, that also meant that there was no chance that Flash would be in her home room either.

Ms. Winninski handed out schedules to all the students, and MJ looked down at hers.

“What classes are you guys taking?” Cindy asked. She was already opening her messages to the group chat, furiously typing away under her desk as phones were not permitted in home room.

“Creative writing—I think Ned is in that class,” Betty said, blushing furiously. “AP Calculus is second period, which will be rough, but then I have theatre, so at least there’s a break. I opted to take dance/health instead of gym/health, and then I have lunch—god, I really don’t want to eat cafeteria food for the next nine months. After lunch I have French, then AP environmental science—oof, those are on opposite sides of the building—and I finish off with AP Econ.” She looked up from her schedule.

Cindy rattled off her schedule next. Then, they were both looking at MJ expectantly.

“Peter and I have AP Chemistry first period.” MJ looked up to find Betty waggling her eyebrows. “Shut up,” she said. “Then I have AP Calc with you and Cindy. AP great books, gym/health—I usually just read in that class anyway—then lunch, Spanish, art, and AP Psych.”

Cindy looked up from her phone and gave the report: “We actually have a few classes with Ned and Peter this year, not just PCB like in years past.”

MJ wanted to look and see but it was too risky with Ms. Winninski prowling around the classroom answering questions and confiscating phones. She sighed and pulled out her sketchbook.

Home room ended a few minutes later and soon Michelle was off to AP chemistry. She smiled at Peter when she saw him, then she remembered what he had done last night and her face reddened.

They sat down at the same lab table and sat in awkward silence, each not really sure what to say to the other.

On days like this, when they were just a bit out of sync, MJ just wanted everything to go back to normal.

Normal—what was normal these days? Michelle wasn’t really sure she knew anymore.

That entire day was exactly like every other first day of school, with teachers taking attendance, going over the syllabus, playing name games (seriously, they weren’t in kindergarten anymore),and every teacher assigning the same getting-to-know-you packet for homework, which meant that MJ had to talk about herself _seven times_.

She guessed that part was normal, but everything else? She was part of the 0.02% of the population that had a true mate, she knew who he was, he didn’t know who she was, she loved him, he didn’t love her, they both had this annoying habit of getting aroused at the worst times, and neither of them could shower in peace ever again.

When she got home, she quietly opened the door in case her mom was sleeping in the sitting room. The light filtered in through the windows in a way that basked the room in a golden glow, she thought maybe she would paint it sometime.

Her mom was, in fact, asleep on the couch. MJ tiptoed past and flopped onto her bed. She groaned thinking about all the homework she had—none of it even remotely knowledge-related. She knew she should get started, but she really didn’t want to.

She pulled her bag toward herself anyway.

——————————————————————

Two hours later, Michelle was done with all the getting-to-know-you questionnaires and was perusing her bookshelf. She had quite a few new books checked out from the library, she just didn’t know which one she wanted to read next.

_Tap tap tap._

Her head whipped toward the window. There was a masked face hanging upside down outside, red hand tapping on the glass.

MJ rolled her eyes, walking over to the window and opening the latch. She heaved the frame up enough for Spider-man to crawl in and drop onto the floor in a crouch. He stood up. “Fancy seeing you here, Michelle.”

“Hmm, I wonder why that would be,” she quipped. “What do you want this time?” She went back to looking at her bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines until she grabbed one randomly.

“I read _The Assistant,_ ” he blurted. Reaching a hand up to run his fingers through hair that wasn’t there.

Michele raised her eyebrows. “What did you think?” She hadn’t much liked the book, to be perfectly honest, only reading it because it was a critically acclaimed story about a jewish deli.

Spider-man shrugged. “I don’t know. It was okay, I guess. I had a really hard time getting behind Frank. There isn’t a sequel, but if there was I don’t think I would read it.”

She looked at him. “You’re a superhero.”

There was a long pause. “…Uh, yeah?”

“And a high schooler.”

“That is also true,” he said tilting his head to the side. “Are we making observations now? Because if we are, that shirt looks good on you.”

MJ rolled her eyes. He was either a shameless flirt in general or the mask made him cocky. Either way, she wasn’t interested. She thought of the way Peter’s cheeks dimpled when he smiled—no, she was definitely not interested. “How do you have time to get through these books when you’re always off saving people—helping the little guy, or whatever the fuck you call it.”

He shrugged. “I read them between ‘helping the little guy’” he said, waving his arms dramatically. “On rooftops and billboards and stuff. Or at school when I’m bored.”

She hummed. “Well, I need to choose another book. Want to help?”

He nodded vigorously, and practically tripped over himself trying to get to where she stood by the bookshelf. For a superhero, he wasn’t very graceful. She smiled to herself, shaking her head, and turned to look at the pile of new books again. 

He pointed at a thick, grey one and said, “This one looks cool.” MJ pulled it from the shelf and read the title _Six of Crows_ followed by the description on the back. His white eyes narrowed at her. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a fantasy reader.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to branch out a bit,” she muttered, cheeks glowing red. She didn’t know why she was embarrassed—she had no reason to be embarrassed—but something about him threw her off. For some reason, she wanted to impress him, and somehow reading a young adult fantasy novel, highly rated or not, seemed like a weak choice after _A Secret History_ or _The Assistant._

His eyes followed the blush down to the top of her chest, then flicked back up to her face, which only made her flush more deeply. “Sounds like a great read,” was all he said. “I’ll check it out from the library.”

She looked down at her bare feet, flexing her toes against the soft carpet. When she looked back up, Spider-man was looking around her room. “Nice room. Lots of books.”

She felt herself flush again. God, what was going on with her today? “Yeah, it’s my safe space. You know, I don’t actually let anyone in here—you’re the first person besides my mom or me to set foot in here in years." There was a long pause, then, "What does your room look like?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “just another normal room. Bed, desk, closet, bathroom—the works.”

“What side of the bed do you sleep on?” Michelle asked. She didn’t know what made her say it, but for some reason she wanted to know—maybe it was a way to make him seem more human, less… other.

“The left, why?” He glanced over to her bed which she realized, somewhat belatedly, wasn’t made and had a lacy bra strewn across it.

“No reason,” she muttered. Then, “I sleep on the left too. So does my best friend, but when I sleep over I kick him to the right side.” She chuckled. “His side of the bed smells like him.”

Spider-man coughed, and rocked onto the heels of his feet. He tilted his head to the side. “I have to go,” he said, moving to raise the window again. He slipped out and crawled out of sight.

MJ looked at her bed again, at that black lace bra, and cursed under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spidey things and Peter things. Just all around fluff this week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay?

The next day when she walked into AP chem, she noticed Peter reading a book at their lab table. She walked over and snatched it out of his hands, looking at the cover.

Her brows furrowed. “Funny,” she muttered. “This is the book I’m reading.”

Peter’s cheeks flushed. “Spider-man told me about it—at the, uh, the Stark internship.”

Great. “He told you?”

“Yeah, he mentioned it. It doesn’t bother you, does it? Because if it does, I can totally tell him to stop coming to see you,” he said nervously.

MJ shook her head. “No, it’s fine. He’s grown on me. He’s our age, you know.”

Peter looked down at his hands. “Really? That’s… surprising. You’re, uh, you’re not going to tell anyone else, are you?”

Michelle thought for a moment. She could see why sharing that kind of information could have consequences. She shook her head, and Peter let out a sigh of relief. He and Spider-man must be pretty close if he was so nervous about people sharing information.

“Alright, folks, today we’ll be working on molecule structure, so get out something to write with and something to write on.”

After the notes, Mr. Stiller passed out a packet for them to work on. Michelle was amazed at how easily chemistry came to Peter. He didn’t seem to have any trouble even with the hardest questions. In fact, he finished early and took out a battered notebook. MJ tried to peek at what was inside but Peter was making a point to angle his body away from hers and cover the pages. She did manage to catch glances of several complex-looking equations and reactions, so she figured he must be doing extra practice. Nerd.

At lunch Peter read the whole period.

MJ had realized on the first day that she and Peter had health together again with Mr. Miln, although they sat on opposite sides of the room. He had taken the first day to play name games so today was syllabus day. Michelle supposed she was grateful he hadn’t read the syllabus on the first day like every other teacher—after all, it did give her and the rest of the class a bit of a break from the endless droning.

Unfortunately, that meant they had to go through the syllabus today.

As soon as she reached her desk she reached into her bag and brought out her sketchbook. After looking around the room, she decided Collin Cassey was the most distressed-looking student and started to draw him.

Mr. Miln walked to the front of the class and cleared his throat. MJ looked up, and when he caught her gaze he shot her a reassuring smile. He looked to the other side of the room and frowned. “Mr. Parker, would you be so kind as to join us on this fine Tuesday afternoon?”

Peter’s head shot up and his ears turned red. Mumbling incoherently, he quickly tucked the book back into his bag and turned his attention to the front of the room. Mr. Miln nodded in satisfaction and looked back to the rest of the class. “Open the syllabus to page three…”

——————————————————————

August ended, then September. She and Spider-man kept up their little book club, and, somehow, Peter always seemed to learn about what she was reading too, showing up to school with a new library book in his bag every few days.

Slowly, Michelle started to get used to Spider-man’s visits—even enjoyed them; like how he could make her laugh when she was sad, or even managed to portray sarcasm through the modulation his voice was put through. And when he complemented her—something he did almost every time he saw her—she felt this creature purring in her gut. She hated it—hated that she was betraying Peter in this way, not that he would care if he found out, but still… she had to admit she did find his constant affections flattering.

It was mid-October now and the weather was starting to get chillier, and MJ was curled up on her bed two-hundred pages into a book. She hadn’t told Peter or Spiderman about this read, had decided to try and hide this series from their book club.

The reason for this was the content of the book. She couldn’t say she hadn’t read things like it before, but now that she had two puppy dogs up her butt at all times, she had to be more careful. She had successfully managed to hide the first book, and she was pretty confident she could keep the second one under wraps.

She put the book down on her bed and trudged to the bathroom on sore feet. When she looked up at her face in the mirror, all she saw was a sad, tired girl staring back at her. It had been taking a tole on her to keep the bond from Peter. Every time she was with him her heart screamed at her to tell him, to be with him. Nothing she did helped. She had even tried going on birth control after reading on some site it could help with the ache, but it hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked—not the yoga, or the pills, or the meditation, or even drowning herself in literature (which had never failed her in the past).

The only good thing was that her mom was doing better—much better, actually. Her recovery was a huge surprise, but MJ would never stop being grateful, and if she had to lose her soulmate—her true mate—in exchange fo her mom’s health… well, that was a price she was more than happy to pay, even if it hurt like hell.

She walked back into her room, and noticed a face hanging outside her window. Shit. She glanced at her bed, at the book lying on top of her covers, before walking to the window and unlatching it to let in her masked friend. He flipped inside and landed on her bed, snatching the book and plopping himself down into a seated position. She cringed and stumbled over to the bed, grabbing wildly for the book before he could read the back, but he just looked at her, narrowed those wide, white eyes, and launched himself onto the ceiling, settling against it as easily as if he were laying on the floor. She cursed under her breath.

“I can hear you, you know,” he said. “Superhuman ears, remember?”

“You’re insufferable,” she complained.

“This looks interesting,” was his only reply. “ _A Court of Mist and Fury_ , and the first in the series is called _A Court of Thorns and Roses_. I’ll be sure to check it out of the library.” He dropped the book back onto her bed and shot a web at a notebook she hadn’t noticed he’d brought in in her haste to keep him from getting to the book.

He settled himself into a seated position hanging from the ceiling and opened it up. He looked at her. “Do you have a pen I could borrow?” He asked.

“Yeah.” She moved to her desk and grabbed one. “What is that, anyway? Homework?”

Spider-man shook his head. “Nah, I’m trying to develop a new formula for my web-shooters.”

It wasn’t exactly out of the norm for Spider-man to come in and read with her on her ceiling, but he had never brought his own work with him. She felt a bubble of pride expanding in her chest that he felt comfortable enough to share that part of himself with her. She hated that bubble. Hated that it was the same feeling she got when she first started falling for Peter.

“Oh, cool. You must be some chemistry wiz, then, huh?” She felt her lips tug up a bit at the corners.

He shrugged, which looked pretty funny upside down. “Yeah, I guess. My parents were scientists.”

It didn’t slip past her that he had used the word “were” there. She supposed he had some tragic superhero backstory. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged again. “It was a long time ago.”

He didn’t say anything more. Right, then. End of discussion. She didn’t want to push him—she knew how touchy the family topic could be. So she offered him a small truth. “My mom just beat cancer.” She swallowed. “Stage three.” Spider man stopped moving. “My dad was so angry when she first got it—beat her because he knew we couldn’t afford the treatments. Then he left. As it is I’ll be paying off debts for years after I’m out of college.”

He nodded. “That’s why you don’t believe in soulmates—because of your mom and dad.” It wasn’t a question.

“How do you know how I used to feel about soulmates?”

He choked. “How did I—Peter told me!”

She rolled her eyes. “My god, does that little bitch tell you everything? Never mind,” she sighed. “I changed my mind a while ago, anyway.” Then, because he hadn’t drowned her in sympathy about her fucked home life, “I’m a true mate, you know?” She thought about Peter, about the way his face scrunched up when he was concentrating on something in class. She briefly wondered what Spider-man’s face looked like under the mask.

It hadn’t really bothered her that she didn’t know what he looked like, but now her fingers were itching to tug that mask up and see the defined jaw beneath.

“That’s pretty rare, right? Peter says showering’s a bitch.”

She smiled to herself. “I told him that the night he turned seventeen.”

Spider-man flipped down onto the bed next to her and pulled her against his chest. “He also tells me it can kind of suck.”

She chuckled against his chest. He smelled good, and she caught herself breathing more deeply, breathing him in. She brought her arms around his waist, and she could feel the corded muscle beneath a suit that left little to the imagination. “Are you sure this isn’t spandex? Because it really, really feels like spandex.”

He huffed a breath, and she was disappointed the mask kept her from feeling it on her head. “I promise you it’s not spandex.”

“Fine, loser.”

“Still a superhero.”

“Shut up, Parker.” She realized her mistake a second too late. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”

She felt him breathe again, and she hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. “It’s okay, Michelle.”

“MJ,” she said.

“What?”

“My friends call me MJ. Sometimes just M.”

She felt his face shift under the mask, and she could tell he was smiling.

For all it was worth, she was smiling too.

—————————————————————

The next day Peter was reading A Court of Thorns and Roses before AP chem. Damnit.

—————————————————————

Michelle swore. Today was the five-mile run. It was an annual occurrence that was dreaded by the entire student body and it always seemed to catch everyone by surprise—probably because the administration didn’t want half the school calling in sick to avoid looking like they just stepped out of a pool.

She sat in the grass waiting for Mr. Miln to call them to attention. Peter came over and sat down next to her. She noticed he was now on the second book in the series.

Mr. Miln cleared his throat and everyone fell silent. Michelle’s eyes flitted to the track. She didn’t hate running—in fact, she ran all the time, listening to a podcast or audiobook as her feet hit the pavement again and again and again. It was more so being watched, being forced to do something she enjoyed rather than doing it of her own volition, that made her hate the required runs.

They all lined up and Mr. Miln blew the whistle. Her legs started moving, and she found herself getting lost in the repetitive movement.

She thought about Spider-man. She thought about how he would lay on her ceiling and read while she did her homework. She thought about how nice it felt when he had hugged her. When had he become such an important part in her day? When had she started enjoying his company rather than tolerating it?

By mile three she was really starting to sweat. Thankfully it was October and the air was brisk and cool, which helped her steady her breathing, but did nothing for the perspiration collecting at the nape of her neck.

Peter was still by her side, though they both seemed content to run in silence. She briefly wondered what he was thinking about. She was glad he was her lab partner in chem. Honestly, she didn’t know what she would do without him in that class—he was absolutely brilliant at it, and she was good enough but having him with her made it a breeze.

By mile five her legs were burning. She and Peter had managed to stay at the front of the group, much to the satisfaction of Mr. Miln, who seemed to tolerate her more than he did the other kids, but she was breathing hard and about ready to murder the entire administrative staff. She really didn’t need everyone seeing her a sweaty mess—it kind of ruined her dark and mysterious aesthetic.

When they finished their last lap, Michelle went and face-planted in the grass, the ground leeching the heat from her body. She heard rather than saw Peter come sit down next to her.

She looked up and scowled. He wasn’t even sweaty. She groaned and shoved her face back into the grass. Of fucking course stupid Peter with his stupid muscles wouldn’t be sweaty after the stupid run.

She ran and she was sweaty. He was clearly not from this world if he could run five miles and still look like a fucking greek god.

Soulmates were supposed to be equals. How was she, Michelle Jones, supposed to match up with someone as smart, funny, witty, and fucking gorgeous as Peter Parker?

She ripped out the grass under her hands and breathed in the smell of earth.

Peter poked her shoulder. “What’s wrong, M?”

She turned to face him. “You’re not sweating, which is really fucking annoying,” she mumbled, then turned her face back into the dirt.

Peter laughed and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her up to a sitting position. “Don’t worry, M. I’m sweating on the inside,” he said, grinning in a way that made her heart do a somersault.

“I don’t even know what that means,” she grumbled, cracking a small smile. She watched him pick up his book, which he had left in the grass, and open it to keep reading.

“I like this one,” he said. “Very cool main character.”

Michelle chuckled. She had left her book inside, not wanting to risk the grass being wet. “Yeah. I read her books and can’t help feeling like I could punch someone after I put them down.” She looked down at her paint-stained fingernails. “I’ve only ever punched two people, and one of them was in first grade, so… I guess I don’t really know what it feels like.”

Peter nodded and rubbed his jaw, turning the page. “I’ve punched,” he paused for a moment, “a few people.” He brought his hand up to run it through his hair, and she tried to imagine those hands punching someone. Tried and failed because he was Peter—Peter, who, when he found a spider in his apartment would put it outside rather than killing it.

She hummed in response, not really knowing what to say in return.

He looked at her. “What?” She asked. His gaze was unnerving.

“Nothing,” he said, hand coming up to rub his heart. “Just a feeling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally cannot wait for you guys to read some of the stuff I have written for a few weeks from now dewbfbdbncsnknjqw!
> 
> Also, I hope you liked this chapter...
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY about the delay! I honestly thought yesterday was Saturday lol. Here it is and it's super long (about 5k words!) I hope you like it!

“I have a complaint to file with you.”

Michelle looked up at the ceiling where Spider-man was sitting, staring her down with those big, white eyes. “What?”

He tilted his head. “How is your skin so clear?”

_That?_ That was his complaint? She narrowed her eyes at him, shrugged. “I don’t wear a mask for hours at a time, for starters. I also have a skincare routine.”

He nodded. They went back to silence.

A few minutes later she felt the superhero flip down next to her on her bed. She ignored him.

He poked her.

She still ignored him.

“MJ,” he whined. Poke. “M.” Poke.

She whipped her head around. “What?” She snapped.

“This might sound so creepy but I want your skin.” Then, as an afterthought, “It’s so pretty—like melted chocolate.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to work, Spider-pig.”

He choked. “I thought we were past that!”

She looked at him, and stated, “Not when you act like you’re two.”

That seemed to shut him up. She went back to her homework, furrowing her brows at the complex chemistry equation on the page. She had been trying to figure it out for over ten minutes now, and she was still confused.

“Do you need help?”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“Do you, uh, do you want help with that? It looks pretty tricky. Obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to—I totally understand if I’m overst—”

“Just shut up,” MJ said, but she slid her binder over to him anyway.

Spider-man, it turned out, was really great at chemistry. Michelle guessed he had to be to develop that web fluid, but it was still rather surprising.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s your name?”

“Can’t tell you that,” he said quickly.

“Oh, c’mon. I won’t tell anyone—you know I won’t. Just tell me.” She knew she sounded needy but she was really curious.

“No.”

“ _Please_.”

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Okay, fine,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. She saw his head dip down to where her breasts were pushed up with the movement. She screeched, “Pervert,” and pushed him across the bed, laughing.

It was all just so ridiculous: she had a fucking superhero in her room (a superhero that occasionally checked her out, but that wasn’t important), and she was poking fun at him. Michelle was pretty sure very few people could say that was a regular occurrence in their lives.

She thought about it—about how he wouldn’t tell her his name. He trusted her, right? He must; he was with her all the time. She had told him things she hadn’t told anybody else, that had to count for something.

So why wouldn’t he trust her?

And then it hit her… What if she knew him in real life—without the mask? Who did she know that could have a secret superhero alter-ego? No one really came to mind. Her mark tingled and she absentmindedly rubbed at it. It hadn’t been very sensitive this week for some reason. Nothing had changed—maybe that was just something that happened occasionally. She didn’t think anything had changed with Peter, she hoped it hadn’t.

But if she knew Spider-man in real life… wow. When she had first learned they were the same age, she had thought of it, but really considering it as a possibility was mind-boggling.

She looked at Spider-man more closely. He was still scribbling in his notebook, and she could just make out his soft mutterings from underneath his mask.

She loved Peter, she couldn’t deny that, but she had to admit that the masked hero was also carving out a place in her heart.

Michelle shook her head. Now was not the time. She grabbed her book and opened it to start reading, settling into the plush pillows on her bed.

As a last-minute decision, MJ swung her legs up to land her feet in Spider-man’s lap. She felt him tense underneath her toes, then turn slowly to look at her. She raised her eyebrows at him, daring him to say something.

He didn’t.

He just turned back to his notebook and went back to work. MJ went back to her book.

A few minutes later, she felt a soft touch on the inside of her ankle. Then the smooth, soft circles of a gentle hand. A hand she knew cold throw a mean punch but had always been gentle with her. This was certainly new, but MJ had to admit she didn’t mind it.

The superhero’s hand moved up to the back of her calf. If Michelle was being honest, she was only pretending to read her book now. Not as she tried—and failed—to keep her toes from curling under his soft ministrations. And for the hundredth time, she tried to picture the face of the boy underneath the mask. Who was it? Did they have any classes together? Why did she even care?

His hand was really quite distracting as it slid absentmindedly up and down the back of her leg, bright red fingers stark against her brown skin.

She put her book down and just watched him play with her toes. She flexed them—it tickled a bit. Spider-man finally looked away from his notebook, as if only just now realizing his free hand hadn’t been idle.

“You’re ticklish?” He said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Absolutely not,” she fired back.

He stroked a single finger down the arch of her foot and she bit her lip. He did it again. Again.

She giggled, unable to hold in her laughter any longer.

“Interesting,” he said, turning to face her on the bed. “A few ideas come to mind.”

Suddenly, he tilted his head to the side. “I’ve got to go.” And he was gone, out her window like a thief in the night, and she was left rubbing the sensation out of her calf, trying to ignore the way his touch made her feel.

Trying to ignore the falling sensation that had started to take over whenever he was around.

Her mark tingled, reminding her of the other person in her life that made her feel like she had dive-bombed off a cliff.

She was so, so fucked.

————————————————————

_Thwap!_

MJ startled and tuned to the person next to her. Peter was bright red, resolutely staring at the wall as he slowly leaned down and put his book into his backpack.

“What was that for?”

He looked at her, looked at the backpack, ran a hand through his hair. “I think I need to rinse my eyes out.”

Oh. _Oh_.

He had made it to that part of the book—the reason why she had tried to keep this particular read away from the rest of the book club.

She smirked. “Feeling hot, Pete?”

He spluttered. “No! Of course not—wait, you _knew_ about this?” He gestured vaguely to his backpack.

“I read it in homeroom the other day.”

“Wha— _how_?”

She looked back at her work. “How what?”

“How do you read that in— _in public?”_ He practically whisper-screamed.

MJ shrugged. “Practice.”

She heard a muffled groan that told her his face was in his hands. “You mean to tell me,” he started, “that on any given day when I look over and you’re reading, you could—you could be reading _that_ and I would never know.”

She smirked. “One could make that claim, yes.”

He didn’t talk to her the rest of the day. Every time he tried, his cheeks flushed red and he coughed noisily before turning away. MJ had to admit it was rather funny.

————————————————————

Michelle sighed. Today had been long—really long. None of her classes had been particularly interesting, and although Peter was now able to look at her without becoming a tomato, he still seemed more reserved around her.

She sighed again—this was exactly why she hadn’t wanted him reading that stupid book. It wasn't even that racy; Peter was just too pure for this world.

MJ sat down on her bed and spread her work out in front of her, determined to finish it quickly so she could get a good night’s sleep.

A few hours later she was in sweats and a big t-shirt, brushing her teeth in the bathroom and basically falling asleep at the sink.

She trudged to her bed, dragging her feet the whole way even though it was only nine o’clock. Her bed looked so warm and inviting, and she fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

—————————————————————

She was torn from sleep by a loud pounding noise. She shot up in her bed, terrified of what it could be.

Michelle checked the clock: it was two in the morning. She was about to shrug it off and go back to sleep when she heard it again. She squinted. It was still dark but she could tell it was coming from the direction of the window.

MJ toppled out of bed, feet getting tangled in her comforter, as she stumbled to the window.

A flash of red through the darkness, a figure hunched over outside her window.

Spider-man.

She quickly reached for her window, the cool metal of the latch slipping underneath her shaking fingers.

She managed to get it open, and he fell through the window.

Something was very wrong—he was never this clumsy.

And then she saw the blood smearing the trim of her window.

Michelle swore. She whipped around.

Spider-man was lying on her floor, blood leaking from his side.

“Oh my god,” she said. “ _Oh my god_.”

She rushed over to him, knees cracking against the wooden floor as she threw herself down next to him. “What do I do? What do you need me to do?”

“Pressure,” he hissed.

“Where,” she said frantically. “Where are you hurt?”

He motioned to his right side where she could just make out a slash in his suit through the thick darkness.

She stood up, quickly backing away. She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Where are you going?” He sounded so desperate. _Probably because he is_ , she thought. The pool of blood on the floor around him was only getting bigger.

“Bathroom,” she whispered. “I need—need a towel so I don’t infect the wound.” God, her voice was shaking so much she could barely recognize it.

She quickly grabbed a towel and ran back to Spider-man’s side, shoving it into the wound and throwing her whole body into applying pressure to try and stop the flow of blood. He groaned in pain and she felt her mark throb, but she brushed it aside—she couldn’t think about that right now.

“Do you have a first-aid kit?” He asked quietly, though the force behind the words could have knocked her on her ass.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yes, I do. Can you hold the towel?” She could just make out his weak nod. “Okay. Okay.” She was frantic; she didn’t want him to die, she didn’t want to lose her friend. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

Thank god her mom was better, because MJ was sure she would have woken up as she ran through the sitting room to the kitchen, covered in blood and cursing under her breath.

She dropped to the floor and threw open the cabinet under the sink, rummaging through garbage bags and extra sponges until she found the medium-sized white box.

She grabbed it and flew back to her room, managing to switch on her light as she went.

If it looked like a lot of blood in the dark, Michelle had no words for the horror scene she could now see clearly in front of her.

Spider-man groaned again, and she was once more spurred into action, feet racing across the floor as she came to kneel down beside him.

“Spidey, what—what do I do? Just tell me what—what to do and I-I’ll do it.”

“Alcohol first,” he said. Right. Alcohol. To clean the cut. Of course.

She managed to fish out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the kit. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely get the cap off. She swore.

Looking back down at him, she realized the towel had started to soak through. She swore again. He probably couldn’t apply enough pressure himself to stop the bleeding. She set down the hydrogen peroxide and put her weight back on the towel.

Spider-man moaned in pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Fuck, there’s so much blood,” she cried. She wanted to run away from this madness, but she couldn’t. She needed to keep applying pressure because if he died… if he died…

Her heart squeezed in her chest. He couldn’t die—she wouldn’t let him, even if she had to drag him, kicking and screaming, away from the light.

Minutes went by, or maybe it was hours; Michelle honestly didn’t know anymore. All she knew was that her hands were covered in his blood and she just had to keep applying pressure.

“M?” He said weakly.

“What,” she snapped. “Sorry, I—sorry.”

“I think the bleeding’s stopped.”

“Okay.”

“Michelle.”

“Yeah?”

“That means you can stop applying pressure.”

“Right,” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “Right.” She slowly leaned back and removed the towel. His suit was stuck to his skin, glued there by the drying blood. “How do I take off the suit?”

“You can’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t keep it on in this state.” She abstained from shaking sense into him, but only because he was badly injured.

“You can’t know who I am,” he pleaded, trying to reach and grab her hand, but falling just short of her fingertips.

She gripped his hand. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

“Just cut away only what you need to to get to the cut,” he said.

“But—”

“ _Please_ , MJ.”

“Fine.” She pulled a pair of bandage scissors from the first-aid kit and set to work cutting the suit away from his skin. She swore for the millionth time that night. It was long. And deep—really, really deep. “Fuck,”she said. “It’s deep. It’s so, so deep, Spidey. I can’t do this. I can’t—”

“You can. You have to. Please—if you stitch it up it will heal on its own.”

“Sti—? That’s it, I’m calling Peter,” she said, getting up to get her phone. She couldn’t do this alone, she needed her best friend.

She needed her soulmate.

“What? No! You can’t call Peter!”

She ignored him at first but then heard another gasp of pain and she looked away from her phone. He was trying to crawl toward her, the idiot. “Lie back down on your back or you’ll start bleeding again,” she snapped, managing to open up her contacts and scrolling through to find _P_.

He didn’t stop. “If you dial him I’m leaving, and I probably won’t be able to hold my own weight so my slow death in a dirty alley will be on you,” he managed through his teeth.

“Fine! Fine, I won’t call him, all right?” She cried, hands splaying out to the sides. “But this is really not okay. None of this,” she gestured wildly between them, “is okay.”

Spider-man nodded, rolling back over onto his back with a sharp grunt that had her cringing.

Michelle ran to the bathroom, gabbed a handful of clean towels, and wet them in the sink before running back to Spider-man’s side. She carefully tried to clean away some of the blood, little red flakes chipping off as she dabbed to the best of her ability. She tried to ignore his hisses of pain, tried to look past the fact that this red stuff was blood, not paint, and—

She was spiraling again. She needed to get herself under control. This was life or death, this was real, not the stuff she read about in books—stuff that now felt much, much farther away.

She grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it liberally over the long cut. It foamed angrily, but MJ remembered that that was a good thing, because it meant it was killing the bacteria and infection. What sort of fuck-truffle had her life become?

“Now the stitches,” he encouraged quietly. Right. Stitches.

Her hands were shaking as she rummaged though the first-aid kit to find the needle and thread. Despite her less-than-steady hands, she managed to get the thread though the eye of the needle, and soon she was bending over her friend and pushing the needle through his skin.

She knew she had to be doing this wrong but he had assured her that as long as his skin was held close to itself, he would heal on his own—something about superhuman abilities, but she could barley hear him over the roaring in her head.

“Talk to me,” she whispered. “I can’t take the silence or I legit am going to call Peter, you dying in an alley be damned.”

“I’ve fought Captain America,” he said.

Michelle did a double-take. “Wait, what?”

He chuckled, but it quickly turned into a hiss. “Yeah, Mr. Stark recruited me when he refused to sign the Sokovia Accords. I stole his shield.”

She inserted the needle a third time as she said, “Stop smiling, Idiot. You just finished bleeding out on my bedroom floor, you don’t get to smile.”

“How do you know I’m smiling? I’m wearing a mask.” He brought a hand up to his face as if to make sure it was still there.

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“Even through the voice-modulator?”

MJ nodded, biting her lip. Before today there was only one person she considered herself to know so well. His name ricocheted around the inside of her head, and she fought the urge to bring her hand up to rub her mark again.

Spider-man told her about some of his more interesting adventures as she worked, trying to keep her breathing steady as she inserted the needle into his skin again and again and again. He told her what it felt like to swing between buildings and scale skyscrapers with his bare hands.

“Finished,” Michelle breathed. “I did a shitty job, but in my defense, the most experience I have in the field of medicine is through the books I read for fun.”

He looked down at his side. “It looks great.”

She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe this boy.

She stood up quickly and moved to the bathroom, taking the bloody towels with her. “I’m jumping in the shower because your nasty ass got blood all over me.”

“I’m sorry if I inconvenienced you,” he joked. “I’ll take a shower after you. Then maybe I can borrow some of your pjs. I don’t think I’m in any shape to try and get back to my house tonight.

“What happened to religiously protecting your secret identity?” She quipped.

“I’ll still wear the mask, Genius.”

She flipped him off over her shoulder.

The bathroom was clean, and Michelle was definitely not. She looked down at herself, and realized quickly just how much blood Spider-man had lost in the last half hour. She turned on the water and waited for it to run hot, stripping her bloody clothes off and throwing them into the shower. She shivered, looking at herself in the mirror, at the way the blood had cracked and crusted, clinging to her skin in a way that reminded her of dried mud.

She heard rustling outside the door, and wondered what Spider-man could possibly be doing. If he ripped his stitches she was going to murder him. The adrenaline was starting to melt away and she didn’t know if she could stomach trying to sew him up again.

She stepped into the shower, letting the water run over her face and neck and then down to the rest of her body. She looked down to watch the water run red into the drain. She scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed away at her skin until it was raw, finally understanding Lady Macbeth’s crazed attempt to rid her skin of the foul substance.

He could’ve _died_. He could have died and she was trying to wrap her mind around that but she just… and maybe… but without that constant, without him poking her and talking about books with her and hanging out on her ceiling like it was a goddamn normal thing to do…

She didn’t want to think about that, because as much as Peter was her best friend, she knew she couldn’t share everything with him. She hadn’t wanted to put her family baggage on him because of his own issues with Ben and his parents, and the soulmate thing… well, it was obvious why she couldn’t confide in Peter about that. And she knew she hadn’t told Spidey yet, but maybe someday she could. Maybe she could find it in herself to share that burden. He was kind and funny and crazy smart, he would understand why she couldn’t tell Peter, right? _Right?_

But she didn’t know how good of friends Peter and Spider-man were… what if she told him andPeter showed up at school the next day demanding to see her mark? Maybe it was better to keep that particular nugget of information to herself; she’d have to think about it.

After deciding her body was sufficiently clean, she turned to the clothes on the floor, still bleeding into the water as if they, too, were alive. She knelt down and started trying to squeeze the blood out of her clothing; it was futile, she knew—the blood would never fully come out—but she had to try. For her own sanity she had to try, because he could have died. He could have…

He could have…

She tasted the salt of her tear as it hit her tongue, tasted the salt of the next one, too as she tried to rid her clothing of trauma and fear.

And then the loud, keening sobs wracked her body as she thought about what she had just done. She had just sewed up her friend because he would have died if she hadn’t… and damn her weak heart if in that moment it was just too much.

A loud banging on the door drew her back to reality. “MJ, I can hear you. What’s going on, are you okay?” When she didn’t reply he banged on the door again “If you don’t answer me I’m coming in—I don’t care if you’re naked, I’ll close my eyes if I have to.”

MJ managed a feeble croak. She tried again, “I’m fine. Just—it’s a lot to handle.” She reached up and turned the faucet off and brushed the water from her brow, trying to take deep, steadying breaths.

She sat there on the floor for a few long moments before steeling herself and getting up.

In a rare stroke of luck, she had one clean towel left in the bathroom. She used it before realizing she didn’t have any clothes. She was about to call out into her room and ask Spider-man to turn around when she remembered that she had just sewed up his side, remembered that he had come to her when he desperately needed help, and she decided that maybe she trusted him, too.

Trusted him to do what, exactly, she didn’t know. Not rip her towel off her? He’d have to be a pretty horrible person to do something like that, and for all his shameless flirting… well, that was probably just for fun. She knew he didn’t actually want her like that.

She opened the door and stepped out from the steamy confines of the bathroom. Spidey had done his best to clean up the mess, managing to get most of the blood off the floor. He was currently spraying some of the spots on her rug when she cleared her throat.

He didn’t say anything about her crying and she didn’t either, which she was grateful for. She knew she would have to talk about it eventually but she didn’t think she could handle it at—she checked the clock—three-fifteen in the morning.

He looked up, saying, “You know I can hear everything yo—”

He froze when he saw her in only the towel. In her quick debate with herself earlier she had forgotten the glaringly obvious: Spider-man was still a teenage boy. Ah, fuck it. Nothing she could do about it now.

MJ moved over to her closet and pulled out another t-shirt and sweats. Hopefully this set wouldn’t get covered in blood. She decided against plopping her hair tonight. She’d look like shit in the morning—hair all frizzy and tangled—but it was worth not having to worry about it at the moment.

She also grabbed one of her t-shirts and (before she could think better of it) the pair of Peter’s boxers she had stolen and threw them at spider-man, who easily caught them before nodding his head once and walking briskly to the bathroom.

She heard the water turn on as she crawled into bed—the right side, because even though she usually slept on the left, she knew he did too and she thought he at least deserved that sense of normalcy after such a crazy night.

She closed her eyes and snuggled into her comforter, letting the sound of water thrumming through the pipes calm her down.

When Spidey came out of the bathroom Michelle was still awake, but she pretended to be asleep.

It was cold tonight.

She felt the bed dip down at her back as Spider-man climbed into the bed. She stayed as still as she could.

“MJ.”

“I’m asleep.”

“Michelle.”

“What?”

“You’re shivering so hard the bed is shaking.”

“The bed is not _shaking_ ,” she quipped. “Besides, people can shiver in their sleep.”

“I can tell by your breathing when you’re awake. And the bed is totally shaking. Is it really that cold?”

“Can you not tell?”

MJ waited but he didn’t answer. There was a pregnant pause, and then she yelped when she was suddenly pulled backward across the bed into a hard chest. She melted instantly. He was so warm, so warm that he managed to chase away the cold that had settled in her bones. She nestled back into him, backside unwittingly brushing against his crotch. He hissed. Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied quietly.

Minutes went by.

“You could have died tonight,” she said, tears threatening to spill once more.

There was a long pause before he said anything else. Then, “Yeah, I could’ve.”

Did she dare admit weakness? She thought it was worth a try. “Tonight was really scary.”

She felt the fabric of his mask brush against her temple as he nodded. His arms around her squeezed slightly, pulling her impossibly closer to his warm, hard body.

“Is it weird spooning your friend?” She felt the rumble of his laugh reverberate through her body at her question.

“This is a no-strings-attatched transaction; just body heat.” Body heat, indeed. He was a furnace behind her.

And since tonight seemed to be a night for vulnerabilities, she voiced one more. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep again tonight.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, she felt his hands start to move, dipping below her t-shirt and drawing long, sweeping circles on her ribs. And though in many other situations touches such as these would have been meant to arouse, she knew now was not one of those times.

Slowly, her body relaxed, releasing its hold on muscles she didn’t even know she had been clenching. “That’s it, M. I’m right here, it’s okay to sleep. You must be very tired.”

And she was. She was so, so tired, so she gave in to those soft touches, gave into the soothing timber of his voice and the heat of his body behind her, and let her eyes close.

When Michelle woke she was cold and alone. She sat up in her bed slowly, looking at her clock to check the time and wondering where Spider-man was.

Her first thought was the bathroom, but when she checked it was empty. Her heart dropped when she saw the t-shirt and boxers she had given him the previous night—or earlier that morning, she guessed.

But he had left, and she didn’t know why that made her hurt so much. Clearly she had made him uncomfortable and messed up their friendship somehow. Or maybe he just needed to get home and she was overthinking everything. Yes, that seemed more plausible. She really needed to stop second-guessing herself. They were friends, and last night wouldn’t change that.

What had he said it was? Oh right, a transaction of body heat. Friends did that for each other.

But did friends crave more than that? MJ didn’t think so. At least, everything in books told her friends usually didn’t think about the things that had crossed her mind over the past few weeks.

And what was she doing? She had a soulmate, goddamnit—one she actually really liked who would maybe someday like her back. And here she was, thinking about someone else and how his body had felt so right pressed up again hers.

But he was her friend, just like Peter, and she really didn’t want to lose that friendship because of her stupid definitely-not-platonic feelings.

God, maybe she needed to get out and try dating, because as much as that thought repulsed her, the friends-to-lovers angle she was currently working with two different people clearly wasn’t doing her any favors.

She looked at herself in the mirror, and holy fuck she was a wreck. She only slightly regretted not plopping her hair last night because now it was equivalent to a giant, frizzy poof sitting on her head.

Today was a day for French braids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl.
> 
> Also, if you would like to see anything, let me know in the comments (prompts, ideas, etc!).
> 
> (I need filler content lol).


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Health class, which means more Mr. Miln (honestly, what a legend).
> 
> In other news, MJ is a complete mess.
> 
> Also, Betty hatches a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all.
> 
> That's it.

Peter kept giving her funny looks for some unknown reason and it was driving her crazy. What did he want? Did he know something? Did he suspect?

Thoughts and worries flooded her head the entire day, dogging her step and chasing her out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang.

She managed to avoid talking to him during chemistry, using the excuse that her book was _really quite interesting, Peter, not now_.

She dodged people in the halls, weaving her way through the throng to the cafeteria where she got in line to wait for food.

She tensed when she felt a tap on her shoulder, but when she looked behind her she relaxed—it was only Betty. “What’s going on with you today?” She asked.

Michelle furrowed her brows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Betty rolled her eyes and gently reached over to shut MJ’s book. “You’re acting… weirder than usual.”

MJ scoffed. “No I’m not.” She looked down at her combat boots, tapping the toes together lightly.

“Yes. You are. You didn’t even try to participate in the conversation _about books_ that Cindy and I were having in home room today, and you kept looking over your shoulder, so your book wasn’t that good. And Peter’s been texting me.” MJ’s eyes shot up at that. “He says you can’t even look at him and he doesn’t know what he did wrong. He’s freaking out on me, M, and we both know he goes to you for this kind of stuff, but you won’t talk to him.”

“What about Ned?”

“You know Ned doesn’t know shit about girls; Peter’s not that stupid.”

Michelle didn’t have an argument for that. Wearing a bandage around his left hand for months on end thinking nobody would notice… well, it didn’t take a fool to notice the way he looked at Betty, and he was a fool for not noticing the way Betty looked at him. Betty had confided in Michelle that she thought Ned was her soulmate, and MJ couldn’t argue with the facts. Ned was just too nervous to make a move, and Betty too stubborn to reward his foolish behavior.

MJ cracked a smile. She shrugged. “I don’t know. Rough night, I guess.”

Inwardly, she sighed in relief. It felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted off her shoulders. He didn’t know. He didn’t suspect. And Spider-man seemingly hadn’t told him about what had happened last night, which was also good.

“I know what will cheer you right up,” smiled Betty. “Cindy and I are going to a party tonight. I know it’s not really like us, but we’re going to try and ply Ned with booze. It would be awesome if you could help.”

“I don’t know, B. I’m not really interested in parties. Or drinking.”

“ _Pleeeaaase?_ For me? Ned has his head up his ass, and you could keep us from getting hammered.” Betty’s eyes pleaded with her, and Michelle thought about saying yes, she really did, but—

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I had a really long night, so I think it would be best if I just went to bed early tonight.”

Betty nodded. She looked disappointed but she quickly covered it with a smile. “No problem. Let me know if you change your mind.”

MJ nodded, though she knew she wouldn’t. She went back to her book and Betty went back to her phone.

She tried to make small talk at lunch—something she rarely ever did. She also tried to ignore the way Peter’s eyes kept flitting to her, scanning her face then flitting away just as quickly. And the way Betty kept shooting her concerned glances.

Clearly her _I’m okay_ act wasn’t holding up very well. She shut up and went back to her book.

——————————————————————

MJ flung herself down into her desk in Mr. Miln’s health class. She looked up at the board and cringed. Sex ed. Great. Now she had to listen to the safe sex talk on an already bad day. Mr. Miln was shuffling papers at his desk at the front of the room. It was worth a shot. She got up and maneuvered her way through the sea of desks. “Mr. Miln?” He looked up at her and smiled, his pudgy face wiggling as he shifted his position in his chair. “Can I read today as long as I can pass the final?”

He chuckled. His hair was starting to grey at the sides. “On any other day, I would, Ms. Jones, but I think you’ll want to be paying attention for today’s lesson.” He shooed her away and she trudged dejectedly back to her desk.

Peter walked in then, and his gaze found hers once more. She looked away quickly, and she couldn’t help but think about Spider-man’s warm body against hers. He threw his bag down in the seat next to hers, making her cringe. She could tell he was upset with her—she was upset with herself, goddamnit. He deserved better, but her heart was a traitorous thing.

She looked down at her fingers, at the paint stains underneath her nails, and sighed. Ned hadn’t told Betty he was her soulmate, though everyone still knew anyway, but that was different. He was doing it because he was scared of rejection. She needed to protect Peter’s agency.

Mr. Miln’s voice startled her from her thoughts. “All right, class, I’ll tolerate no funny business today. Safe sex is good sex, wrap it before you tap it, yada yada yada.” He reached up to scratch his nose and Michelle could feel the awkward silence settle across the room. “Now, your bodies are all changing and whatnot. You have all probably had urges to do some funky things to another person in the past few years, but I’m here to give you the dreaded talk no parent wants to give their child, so her we go.

“There are many forms of contraception out there. Oral birth control is very popular among women, but as I’m sure you all know how to take a pill, I’ll move past that. I will now demonstrate how to properly use a condom on this underripe banana…”

Mr. Miln droned on and on about sex and contraception and abortion options, but Michelle wasn’t really paying attention until he called on her.

“Miss Jones, would you please remind the class about what a true mate entails?”

MJ’s head snapped up, and she managed to stumble through a brief explanation about bonds and rarities.

Mr. Miln just nodded along, and, seemingly satisfied with her answer, he continued on with his lecture. And it was a good thing she was paying closer attention now—she thought that had been Mr. Miln’s intention when he had asked her that question—because what he said next was a rather important tidbit of information.

“These normal forms of contraception don’t work on true mates. Condoms dissolve when use is attempted and birth control is virtually useless, however, in recent years Tony Stark has engineered a special version of the condom—one that won’t dissolve in such situations. However, they usually take about three months to manufacture since materials are not readily available, so I suggest,” Mr. Miln shot her a quick glance, “ordering them immediately if you believe the situation applies to you.”

Well, Fuck. It was just her luck; at this point she had to admit she was expecting it. She glanced over at Peter, only to find he was looking at her, too. His eyes were like liquid pools of hot chocolate, and she lost herself in them for a moment before she realized he was mouthing something to her. _Can we talk?_

Michelle cringed inwardly. Could they? Was she prepared for that conversation?

The answer was easy: no, she wasn’t, but could she do that to him? The answer to that was also no.

So she just nodded subtly and turned back to the lesson, where Mr. Miln was now pointing out the clitoris on a projected diagram.

———————————————————————

Peter was at her locker after school, and MJ closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself. Should shetell him about last night?

Maybe, but every time she thought about last night, she felt the phantom wisps of Spidey’s hands drawing circles into her sides and stomach. Felt the utter _rightness_ of curling up with him—a rightness she thought she would only ever feel with Peter.

No, she would not tell him. It was selfish, but she wanted to keep those two parts of her life separate.

Michelle resigned herself to the fact that she was a horrible person and walked the last ten feet between her and Peter, shrugging off her backpack and kneeling down in front of her locker.

“Did I do something wrong?” Peter asked. She could feel his gaze like a brand on her skin.

She leaned her head against the locker and looked at his shoes. The scuffs on the toes were really quite interesting. “No. No, you didn’t.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s nothing,” she mumbled, still looking at his shoes.

“It’s not nothing, M. You won’t even look at me. You always look at me, and frankly sometimes it’s a little scary, but this scares me more.” She looked at him now, and the pain in his eyes floored her. She almost told him then. Almost told him about what had happened last night, previous resolve be damned, but she couldn’t. It was not her place to tell.

“I had a really long night,” was all she said. She stared right at him as she said it, trying to prove him wrong. She could look at him. She was looking at him right now.

She saw panic flash through his eyes. “Do you know?”

She furrowed her brows. “Know what?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. Too quickly to be normal. She didn’t know what he meant by that. What was he hiding?

He looked at her, long and hard, calculating what she had just said. “Come to the party tonight. “We’re all going to hound Ned until he takes that stupid bandage off.”

She gave him a look.

“C’mon, M. We’ve never been drunk before—now’s our chance to live like real high schoolers.”

Michelle shook her head. “I already told Betty I wasn’t going.”

He shook his head sadly. Then he walked away. And it was like her heart was being ripped out of her chest as she watched his retreating back.

She was managing to ruin their friendship even without sharing her feelings for him. They used to tell each other everything, and now she was keeping secrets from him. He was keeping secrets too if the conversation they just had told her anything. She missed her best friend—sure she still talked to him, but it wasn’t the same as it had been. Hadn’t been the same for a while now.

She sighed and grabbed her coat from her locker before swinging her bag over her shoulder and marching off toward the front of the school.

———————————————————————

That night after finishing her homework, Michelle thought about Peter. She thought about the now glaring situation she was in having to now order condoms from Tony Stark.

And she thought about Spider-man.

He hadn’t come to visit her today. Maybe she was wrong this morning when she assumed she hadn’t fucked up their friendship.

It seemed everything she did nowadays was wrong. She stared at her ceiling—a ceiling empty of the masked hero who frequented it so often—and made a decision.

She grabbed her phone and opened Betty’s message feed.

MJ: _Where is the party?_

She waited a few minutes broke Betty’s response.

Betty: _omg yay!_

Betty: _It’s at Sage Harper’s house. I’ll send you her address._

MJ closed her eyes. Maybe getting drunk was just what she needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl if you want to chat or ask a question!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of the party. 
> 
> aka, MJ and fam don't know anything about alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all!
> 
> Hope you have fun(?)

MJ did not dress up.

She wore exactly what she had worn to school.

Even though she was going to a party, she refused to be one of _those girls,_ which she knew was cliche in it of itself, but it was better than the alternative _._

She took the subway to the address Betty had given her and went inside.

The first thing she noticed was that it was very loud—too loud, in her opinion. People crowded in around her as she tried her best to weave her way through the crowd. Just as she was sure she would never find her friends, a hand grabbed her and pulled her to the side. She was met with Betty’s grinning face. “Hey, MJ! I’m so glad you could make it!”

Michelle nodded, smiling slightly at her friend’s enthusiasm, and asked, “Where is the alcohol?”

“What?” Betty yelled. “I can’t hear you!”

Oh, right. MJ just wasn’t used to being very loud. She asked her question louder, and Betty’s smile got impossibly wider.

“This way.”

MJ followed Betty through the thick crowd, careful to keep one arm on her wrist.

When they got to the table with the drinks, Michelle realized just how far in over her head she was: she didn’t know anything about drinks or alcohol.

She did know what she wanted, though. “What will get me drunk the quickest?”

“Hell if I know,” Betty replied. “Apparently we both don’t know anything about anything.”

MJ decided to poor herself a mix of lemonade and tequila. She felt like she’d heard about that somewhere and she liked lemonade so it couldn’t be that bad.

Correction: it was pretty bad. Her first sip had her coughing as the alcohol burned its way down her throat. Her second was no different. Neither was her third.

Betty didn’t seem to be doing much better. MJ could see her eyes watering as she tried to choke down a shot—Betty was definitely braver than she was.

Drink in hand, Betty dragged Michelle over to a side room that was only slightly less loud. MJ’s eyes found Peter immediately. He was eyeing the drink he had in his hand suspiciously, as though it might jump out and bite him if he so much as tried to drink it. Ned was next to him, fiddling with that stupid bandage as he said something that made Cindy laugh.

None of them seemed interested in dancing, or the game of beer pong being played in the adjacent room.

Betty pulled MJ over to Ned and grabbed Cindy, effectively pulling both girls to an unoccupied corner.

Cindy giggled and looked back at Ned. “So what’s the plan,” she asked.

MJ took another sip of her drink, cringing as it burned its way down her throat, as Betty said, “We get him drunk first. Then maybe we get into a game of truth or dare and get him to take off that fucking bandage.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan,” Cindy said, taking another sip off her drink. “God, this shit is disgusting.”

She took another sip anyway.

MJ and Betty did too.

“How do we get Ned drunk? You know he’ll stop as soon as he starts feeling tipsy,” MJ asked.

“Ooh, how about shots? Those get people drunk, right?” Cindy added.

“Yeah, too drunk. We don’t want him not remembering anything.” Betty said.

Michelle thought for a moment. “How about we cap it at three? We all have no tolerance so that should be enough, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, but we can’t all be drunk, right?”

“We pit him against Peter. You know how competitive those two can be.”

Betty paused for a moment. “Okay. Okay, that sounds good.”

They all took sips of their drinks before heading off to put their plan into action.

MJ went up to Peter and Ned while Betty and Cindy rounded up an audience, and in no time they had a group of fifteen or so gathered around the two boys, hooting and hollering as three shots were poured in front of them.

“On the count of three,” Cindy said. Both boys put their palms face-down on the table. “One. Two. Three!”

They both reached for the first shot glasses at the same time, quickly downing them. After the first glass was a defined wince and a bit of coughing, but as soon as they could they grabbed for the second glass. The third.

Peter slammed his third empty glass down on the table, letting out a glorified whoop as Ned finished downing his third glass.

“Oof, that burns,” Ned said.

MJ nodded, looking down at her tequila lemonade. She hadn’t made much of a dent, to be honest, only able to take a tiny sip each time.

She looked over to Peter, who hadn’t wanted to gloat about his victory in front of all these people. She was sure she’d hear about it later, though.

“Truth or dare!” Cindy screamed, meeting MJ’s eye as she did. Her idea was met with a chorus of shouting and cheering.

This was too easy.

Betty, Cindy, and MJ all sat together. Peter and Ned sat across from them with a few others separating them on either side.

“So…” MJ started awkwardly, “who wants to go first?”

Brad raised his hand from beside MJ. He was quiet, and had always been kind to MJ. Never much of the outspoken type, but that was something she enjoyed about his company: he was very calming.

She changed her mind when he opened his mouth.

“MJ, truth or dare?”

She whipped her head toward him. _Why her?_ She had never really played truth or dare with anyone—much less a group of drunk teenagers.

She decided truth was less dangerous than dare, so that’s what she picked.

“What’s your favorite color?” Brad asked.

That most definitely was not what she was expecting, but it was easy enough to answer so she decided not to question it.

“Chocolate brown,” she said. “The kind that makes you want to melt.” As an artist, she expected her favorite color to be something bright or spicy, maybe even a muted orange or red like falling leaves, but when Brad had asked that question, all she could think about were Peter’s eyes; the way she truly felt like melting when she looked at him.

She liked that feeling, scary as it was.

People were looking at her expectantly, and Michelle realized that it was her turn. She took a quick sip of her drink. This was all part of the plan. They only needed to wait about ten minutes for the shots to kick in (according to wikipedia), and then they could start their interrogation of Ned.

She looked around the room. “Cindy, truth or dare?”

Cindy’s eyes glittered. “Dare.”

“I dare you to kiss Betty,” MJ said.

They had talked about this before hand—about how to start off deflecting from Ned until the time was right.

MJ watched Cindy lock eyes with Betty as she shifted to face her. They both leaned in, Cindy leaning up to cup one of Betty’s checks with the palm of her hand, pushing some of the blond hair away from her face. MJ could see the mirth glittering in Betty’s eyes before she closed them.

The kiss was short and sweet, nothing too hot or heavy but when MJ chanced a glance at Ned, his cheeks were flushed, eyes locked on Betty’s mouth. She smirked; their plan was working already.

Betty pulled away first, clearing her throat and looking back out into the circle. “Peter,” she said, and Michelle snapped her head up immediately, eyes locking onto the side of Peter’s face as he looked at Cindy, “truth or dare?”

Peter looked around. “I guess I’ll try a dare,” he said sheepishly.

Cindy shot MJ a glance, which confused her until she said, “I dare you to take your shirt off.” Peter’s eyes widened comically as he looked at her.

“My shirt?” He choked out. Cindy nodded, and MJ wanted to slap the sly smile off her stupid face.

Peter reached down for the hem of his shirt, grabbing it and quickly pulling it over his head. This was most definitely _not_ part of their plan. She looked at Cindy, who just shrugged at her and whispered, “I wanted to see them in real life.”

_“Them?”_ She whispered back.

“His abs,” she said, flicking her eyes down to Peter’s defined stomach, then back to MJ’s eyes. “God knows you like looking at them.”

“ _Cindy._ ”

“I speak only the truth.”

“That’s not the truth.”

“I know what I saw in those photos Ned sent.”

Goddamnit, this was not what she needed tonight. She downed the rest of her drink, ignoring the tears that started to form at the corners of her eyes, and said, “I’m getting another drink. I’ll be right back.”

She made her way through the throngs of people talking and dancing and giggling with one another and poured herself another tequila-lemonade.

When she got back to her circle of friends they were all laughing as Flash recorded a video of Harry telling the camera about his foot fetish in great detail, and MJ assumed Flash had something to do with it.

Peter seemed to have relaxed a bit—probably something to do with the alcohol, but at least he no longer looked like a fish out of water, laughing along with the rest of their friends. His arms supported him behind his back, his chest and stomach on full display.

His tattoo was also on full display, which had an uncomfortable feeling curling in MJ’s chest. That was _their_ tattoo. Something they shared, and for a moment she hated that everyone else could see it, which was ridiculous, she knew, but the way most of the girls and even some of the boys were staring at him… well, she didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

She took another big sip of her drink, closing her eyes and focusing on the burn of the alcohol as it made its way own her throat. She needed to get control of herself. He was so perfect and she was this… mess.

When she looked at him all she wanted to do was jump him; she was just like everyone else who was staring at him, wondering how the hell Peter Parker had been hiding _that_ all this time.

And the worst part is that she knew if she did, he would be kind about it. Let her down easy, saying, _MJ you’re my best friend and I love you, but…_

_But not like that._

And she would be crushed, because even though she knew her feelings were one-sided, hearing him say it, having that verbal confirmation… she might never be able to leave her room again.

She opened her eyes and looked over at Betty. As annoying as Ned was being, she wished they could switch places. It would be so much easier that way. No true mate bullshit. No dissolving condoms and dubious consent and crazy, half-wild sex-drive for her best friend. No heartache and loss that was slowly killing her.

She wasn’t even sure what was worse anymore: the physical symptoms or the mental and emotional ones.

Betty looked at her, and MJ thought she might be able to see the pain in her eyes, in her heart. Betty’s eyes flashed over to Peter, who was laughing as Harry dared Emma to make out with her drink, then back to MJ. She gave a small smile and the briefest of nods before going back to the game. MJ wasn’t really sure what to make of that, so she took another sip of her drink and turned back to the game as well.

Emma looked at the girl sitting next to her, a junior who joined Acadec last year, and asked her, “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth,” she said confidently, her auburn hair falling loosely over one shoulder. She was very pretty, MJ noticed, with her crop-top and tiny skirt and pale skin. Defined legs and a tiny waist and big boobs—a lot of the things MJ was not.

It made her feel inadequate.

She took another big gulp of her drink.

“Okay, Fuck-Marry-Kill,” Emma said. Lily opened her mouth but Emma cut her off, “Only with the people in this group.”

That made Lily’s cheeks flush as she glanced around the room. Flash had sat up and Michelle could tell he was tensing his muscles in an effort to look more buff. She rolled her eyes.

Lily opened her mouth to speak. Closed it. Looked around the room again. “Fuck… Peter,” she said, “for obvious reasons.” She was looking at his abs as she said it, which made MJ see red.

She had to remind herself that Peter could do whatever he wanted. _Who_ ever he wanted, because he was his own person.

She knew all these things—had accepted them—but it didn’t change the way that ugly feeling in her chest reared its head.

She hated that feeling. It made her feel like garbage.

Peter’s eyes shot to hers, and she saw panic in them as he subconsciously brought his hand up to his mark.

That monster in her chest was pacing back and forth as she watched everyone’s eyes go straight to Peter, as if they were suddenly realizing how attractive he was only after he has taken his shirt off earlier in the game.

Lily continued, “Marry Harry and kill Flash.”

Flash spluttered and looked around the circle, where people were mostly nodding subtly at her choices.

MJ thought she would fuck Peter, marry Peter, and kill Flash, but she supposed that wasn’t really the point of the game.

A few more people asked questions, did dares, and caused all around chaos, until it landed on Cindy once more.

Michelle glance over at Ned, who was giggling hysterically and kept tapping Flash on the shoulder so he turned toward Cassie. Both of them were drunk enough that Flash never realized it was Ned and Ned thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Michelle looked at her friends and Betty nodded at Cindy.

It was time.

“Ned,” Cindy said. He looked over to them. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to take off the bandage.”

Silence.

MJ wasn’t sure who was more tense: Betty or Ned.

He reached over slowly and unwrapped the bandage from his hand, lifting it up to show the cat’s eye tattooed across his palm.

Betty let out a breath MJ hadn’t realized she had been holding and nodded, a small smile ghosting her lips. And then she launched herself at him and tackled him with a hug. “You’re so stupid, Edward Leeds.” Ned was drunk and Betty was tipsy but they managed to put their palms together. “All you needed to do was show me,” Betty said quietly, and she kissed him.

People let out a chorus of _oohs_ which was ruined when Flash wolf-whistled. MJ rolled her eyes but she couldn’t deny that she was smiling.

Betty sat down next to Ned and they continued playing like that for a while. Michelle got through her second drink, but she was starting to feel a little tipsy so she poured herself lemonade with no tequila, deciding she didn’t need more alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the cutoff was a bit awkward, but this is one long scene and I didn't know where else to end the chapter lol.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl
> 
> I sometimes post teasers to upcoming chapters there.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second half of the party. 
> 
> Peter and MJ in a closet? (Hmmmmm)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter, so hope you like it, too.

Her brain was now a pleasant buzz inside her skull, and she giggled as she made her way back to her group of friends.

She joked with Cindy about Betty and Ned as the rest of the group continued playing truth or dare.

His name cut through that buzz like a knife.

“Peter, truth or dare?”

She looked up at him to see that his eyes were already on her face. They left to meet Harry’s gaze quicker than she could have thought possible. He seemed to contemplate for a moment, before saying, “Truth.”

Harry grinned knowingly, and asked, “Who in the group would you be most interested in hooking up with?”

His eyes shot back to hers, and she saw panic in them again as his gaze darted around the circle.

Her heart shot up into her throat, eyes tracking the way his tongue flew nervously across his bottom lip.

She watched as his eyes landed on the Lily, shot back to hers, back to Lily’s red mane of hair. “Lily sounded interested earlier, so probably her.”

Michelle felt sick. Briefly she noticed Cindy facepalm, but all she could focus on was the bile in her throat.

It felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest on a string, and she watched, helpless, as Peter reeled it in with the way he was looking at Lily.

She didn’t know what to do with her hands. What had she done with her hands her whole life?

She stood up suddenly, and many of the circle’s eyes shot to her. She motioned to her half-full drink stupidly. “I need to pour myself another drink.” With that she marched off into the crowd.

She looked down at her lemonade. Every part of her was screaming. She wanted to shut herself up; she thought more alcohol might do that, but she was worried if she drank any more she would do something truly stupid. There was still that faint buzz, but it wasn’t nearly enough to drown out the screaming.

She felt a hand close around her wrist and she flinched, but it was only Cindy. “Peter’s an idiot,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Anyone with two brain cells to spare can tell you like him. It was unfair of him to do that to you.”

Michelle bristled. “Peter can do whatever he wants.”

Even if it hurt like hell.

“That’s not—” Cindy pinched the bridge of her nose, “that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

MJ just shrugged. There was nothing she could do about Peter. He was a teenage boy, and teenage boys had… urges? Was that the right word?

Who was she to be offended when he showed interest in someone like Lily?

Who was she to be offended when he _didn’t_ show interest in her?

Cindy pulled her back toward the side room. “My drink,” MJ protested, albeit weakly.

“Your drink isn’t empty, Michelle. It never was,” Cindy said as she continued to pull her back to their friends.

“I think I’m going to go home,” MJ tried.

“Alone? At this time of night?” Cindy asked. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, M. Spider-man can’t be there for every woman in need all the time.”

MJ sighed, but… Cindy had a point. She hadn’t seen her masked friend since he had stained her floorboards red; for all she knew, he was avoiding her and she would never see him again.

She hated everything.

She hated life even more when they got back to their friends and she saw that someone had procured an empty bottle—a bottle that was spinning around on the floor as everyone watched with rapt attention.

“You should do it—to help get your mind off that dumbass over there,” Cindy said into her ear, nodding vaguely in the direction of Peter.

And maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was Peter, and the fact that he wasn’t wearing a stupid shirt. Maybe it was the lingering thought of never seeing Spider-man again.

Maybe it was a mix of all those things, but MJ nodded and smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes, and sat down.

She barely remembered volunteering to spin the bottle. She thought she had counted as it spun around and around and around, but she forgot the number almost immediately as it landed on the one person she was trying to escape.

She just closed her eyes.

All she felt was numbness. An emptiness so deep she didn’t know how she had ignored it for so long.

But there it was, a gaping hole in her heart that had ripped open when Lily’s name had left Peter’s lips. Cracks had been forming for a while, yes, but she had been able to block them out until tonight.

She was broken, and she didn’t think even seeing Spider-man again could fix her.

So she didn’t fight it when Harry dragged her from her seated position and threw her in a closet with Peter, closing the door to shut them in together with a resounding _click_.

She just stared, unseeing, as they were thrown into darkness.

She was pulled out of her reverie by Peter’s nervous laugh. She cracked a bland smile, leaning idly again the coats in the closet.

He seemed to see her then—really see her—and his brows furrowed. “What’s wrong, M?” His voice was low and soothing against her heart, and she tried to ignore the way it made her feel. He reached out to take her arm and she tensed up. Peter noticed, though. “Did I do something wrong?”

_Yes, you idiot, I love you and you’re too blind to see it._ “No, of course not.” Her voice felt thick on her tongue, like curdled molasses.

Peter reached up and brushed a stray curl out of her face. “This isn’t you, Michelle. Something’s wrong—I did something wrong and I can’t fix it unless you tell me what it is.” There was a pause. “Please.”

She shook her head and managed to meet his gaze. “It’s nothing. Just—” how was she supposed to say this? “When people were out there talking… as we played the game, you know, I just realized I have no chance at having that kind of attraction with someone. No one will look at me and say, ‘now that’s someone I would want to be with over a girl like Lily’, and it just—it hurts inside sometimes. To be aware of that.”

She looked down at her boots, unable to meet his gaze, but he pulled gently on her chin so she was looking at him once more. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said quietly. He pulled her against his chest in a hug, and she melted into him.

She could have this. They were best friends and she could allow herself this one comfort.

She buried her nose in his neck and breathed in, feeling his breath hitch as she did. They stayed like that for a while, just holding each other—something they hadn’t done in a long time, and it felt _good._

It felt like home.

Michelle focused on Peter’s breathing, letting the soothing sound calm her nerves. Nothing beat this. Nothing beat the feeling of having him all to herself, even if it was mostly a facade.

She felt her mark burning slightly, her shirt and bra the only thing that separated them from being skin to skin.

A slow, tingling sensation started to make its way through her body, blossoming out from her chest and and lighting up her nerves like fireworks. Michelle whimpered slightly as she shifted against Peter’s chest, trying to find some relief from this new feeling invading her body.

Every point of contact was a sigh of relief to her otherwise burning skin, so she pushed herself further against him, chasing that cooling feeling of his skin on hers.

Peter moved underneath her arms, and she briefly wondered what he made of all this. Would he figure it out? Would he realize what was happening between them?

But she realized she didn’t care—or at least the alcohol in her brain made it seem inconsequential in that moment.

She pushed her breasts up against him, reveling in the way her heart skipped a beat, tripping over itself in an attempt to get even closer. She felt him gasp as she did, and she couldn’t help the small smile that ghosted over her face at the sound.

Peter moved his head, and Michelle wondered what he was doing until she felt his lips hot against her ear. She thought she might explode with the way it felt when his lips travelled further down, teeth gently tugging on the soft, fleshy lobe; when she tilted her head to give him easier access and he moved down to suck on her neck, eliciting soft noises from her.

Her hands travelled up into his hair, and finally— _finally_ —she got to feel how soft it was, curls traveling smoothly underneath her hands. _This_ —this is what she dreamed of on nights she told no one about, what she painted again and again only to cover the images with the red and blue and black of mountains and the green foliage of trees and tall grasses.

This was everything.

Peter flicked his tongue against her skin and she squeaked. He chuckled into her neck and her heart warmed at the sound, fingers clutching his hair as he moved his lips up to her jaw, opening his mouth slightly and gently sucking on her soft skin. She squeezed her thighs together in an attempt to control herself but it wad no use.

His hands travelled down her back, stopping on her waist so he could keep her still, keep her from squirming under his ministrations.

She wanted them lower. On her ass; between her thighs where she knew his fingers wold find the beginnings of her slickness staining her underwear. She wanted him everywhere.

She pulled him away from her neck, already missing that loss of contact, but she needed to see his face.

His pupils were blown wide with lust, lips puffed from use, and his hair… well, she was right to assume that day years ago what his sex hair would look like. They hadn’t had sex, she knew, but she got the picture.

The realization was so strong she ran her fingers through his hair again, reveling in the way he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. She took the opportunity to lean in, tilting her head to the side as she got closer, and—

And when their lips met for the first time Michelle thought she was going to have a heart attack.

She melted against him, letting her body mold to his as she held him, nails gently scraping against his scalp in a way that made him hum against her mouth.

She loved that sound. Wondered what other sounds she could draw from him if given the chance.

Peter pulled her hips tightly to his, and she noticed the slight bulge she felt against her pelvis. She ground against it and he hissed, tongue flicking out to run across her lips, asking for access to her mouth. She let him in immediately, sighing as his tongue traced the contours of her mouth, pulling out little whimpers as they moved against each other.

Her hands left his hair, trailing down the back of his neck to grip his muscular shoulder blades. His hands moved, too, dipping under her shirt and tracing her spine in a way that had her shivering against him.

How something so simple could make her feel the way she was, she didn’t know, but she never wanted it to stop.

She let her hands trail down his chest to his stomach where she traced the outline of his defined abdomen, loving the way it tensed as her hands fluttered up toward his pecs, where she knew his mark was.

She started with one finger, lightly pushing it against where she knew that black spider to be. He groaned into her mouth, hips bucking against her in a way that made her knees weak, and she smiled against him, tracing her finger around his nipple.

His tongue danced with hers as she placed her palm flat against his mark. He pulled back suddenly, head falling against the wall as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, M,” he hissed.

She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that the rugged harshness in his voice would fuel her fantasies for weeks to come.

His hand flew to her wrist, pulling it away from his mark. She wanted to protest but he beat her to it. “Not here. Not—not for the first time.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but through the haze of her tipsy, lust-filled brain, she wrote it off. It wasn’t important, not when he was in front of her like this.

His hands came up to the back of her neck as he tilted her head to the side, trying to gain access to her neck. He went back to sucking and nipping at her skin. She was trying so hard to be quiet, but Peter wasn’t making it very easy on her.

“Peter,” she gasped, “they’ll hear us.” Her head lolled to the side as she did, his hair brushing against the curve of her jaw.

She felt him smile against her skin, and could just make out a, “You’ll have to be quiet then,” between his kisses on her clavicle.

His hands moved down to the hem of her shirt, and she barley registered raising her arms so he could take it off, barley registered how his eyes darkened as the bare, smooth skin of her stomach was revealed to him, inch by inch.

MJ thought her skin was on fire as Peter dove back down to meet her, greedily sucking her lower lip into his mouth. His hands were everywhere, skirting across her collarbone, down her sides, around her waist, up her back, between her shoulder blades. They made their way into her hair, pulling lightly at the braids she had in until he managed to extract the hair ties.

Humming, she tried to focus on the feeling of his hands loosely combing out her braids, tugging on her scalp in a way that had her chest start purring in glee. His mouth traveled back down to her jaw, sucking lightly and nipping at the skin, giving her lips a break.

She could tell they were swollen when she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth.

She thought she was going to burn up. She was going to die from the fire coursing through her veins. She was gasping by the time his hands travelled down her back. Lower.

She groaned when she felt them on her ass. She wanted him to squeeze it but he didn’t. Always the gentleman, Peter was.

She loved that about him, but sometimes it was the absolute worst.

MJ ran her fingers though his hair once again, burying them at the base of his neck. She tilted her head back and just _felt_.

Felt his hands travel back up her spine and hook onto her bra strap, felt his fingers run back and forth along the strip of fabric, and when they moved to the middle of her back once more she knew what he wanted.

And she wanted him to take her bra off—god, she wanted it. She felt like she might combust if she didn’t feel his skin there, feel it everywhere, and she wanted to give in to that urge.

But something stopped her.

Some small part of her mind that told her they were drunk and seventeen and _in a closet_.

And that part got bigger the more she thought about it. That Peter was only kissing her like this out of pity because of what she had told him. Or maybe only because he was drunk and neither of them could hold their alcohol.

She pushed him back suddenly, hating herself as she did, body screaming out in the absence of his, but she couldn’t let him take her bra off; he would see her mark and then he would _know_. He looked at her, confusion shimmering in his gaze, as he took a step back.

Michelle ran her tongue over her teeth. “We’re drunk,” she said.

Peter's eyes flashed. “I’m not drunk.”

“You had three shots and two drinks.”

“Fast metabolism,” he said simply.

MJ rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t work like that, Peter.” She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. “We’re in a closet.” She shifted on her feet, not sure what to do next, what to say to make him understand.

“I don’t care where we are. I’ve waited long enough.”

Her heart ached so much. “We’re drunk.” And before he could say anything else she pulled her shirt on and shoved her way out of the closet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been coming for over thirty thousand words now. I would be lying if I said I hadn't been avoiding it out of fear of not doing it justice, but I was finally able to sit down and bang it out.
> 
> I hope I satisfied you lot... for now.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter doesn't know anything about anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short, extra chapter for Christmas!
> 
> Also, I talk a bit about black hair in this chapter but not very in depth so I wanted to link a few articles (and a YouTube video) in case you wanted to know more.
> 
> https://www.scarymommy.com/black-womens-hair-dont-touch/
> 
> https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/dont-touch-black-womens-hair/
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkyoyluZPSY
> 
> One more thing: I know it can be really easy to get mad at characters, and I welcome that, but I think it's important to keep in mind that people make mistakes, and none of these characters are perfect, so when you want to pull your hair out in the next (few) chapter(s), keep that in mind. :)

Peter’s POV:

Peter felt like shit. He knew he had made MJ feel bad. Lily.  _ Why did he say Lily? _ He didn’t even like Lily. Sure she was nice, but she was also a bit vapid and flaky. Not like MJ who was smart and socially aware and politically active in a way that made him want to be a better person. He had just panicked, which made him a stupid fucking idiot. He thought he could make it better by showing her how he felt because he couldn’t say it. He was a coward, he knew, but he also knew that MJ looked at him as a best friend. Maybe with Spider-man—he got the feeling she might like him—but not as Peter… never as Peter. And that sucked, because he liked her.

He  _ really _ liked her.

When they kissed his senses had exploded. Everything was hot and his mark burned like it never had before. He assumed his superpowers had something to do with that, but he wished it was more.

Watching her leave had been harder than a lot of things in his life; he just wanted to reach out and pull her against his chest once more, feel that cool tingle wash over him where his skin touched hers.

But she had left, and Peter hadn’t wanted to overstep his boundaries by forcing something on her that she clearly didn’t want. Even if for a moment—just for a moment—he thought she felt the same way he did.

But Peter knew better: even though he couldn’t physically get drunk, MJ had had several drinks, and she had come to her senses almost as fast as she had lost them. And when she had said that, about someone not wanting her over a girl like Lily… well, he had wanted to scream at her, shake some sense into her, tell her how he felt, do something, do  _ anything _ .

Instead he stood there. Hugged her. Pretended she was just his friend until the smell of her hair had overwhelmed him (tea tree and something fresh he couldn’t quite place) and he had lost control. 

He had taken advantage of her in her tipsy state, used her vulnerability as an excuse to make a move, and she would probably hate him tomorrow.

Peter couldn’t blame her; he hated himself at the moment, so he could understand why he had crossed an unspoken line in their friendship.

He realized belatedly that he hadn’t moved. MJ was long gone and the door had closed behind her, leaving him in the quiet darkness of the closet. He swore quietly and ran a hand through his hair. He needed to pull himself together. He was a superhero, goddamnit. He was supposed to be good at shit like this. Mr. Stark was, at least. He always seemed to know what to do, but Peter was  _ not _ about to ask him for love advice.

Love. That was a funny word. He didn’t know what it meant quite yet.

He quickly tried to smooth down his hair before pushing out of the closet. 

As he made his way back to where Ned and Betty were he overheard part of MJ and Cindy’s conversation. 

He wasn’t trying to, he just couldn’t help it.

“He took out your braids?” Cindy muttered, and Peter could detect the smallest amount of anger in her voice.

He didn’t hear MJ respond, but he assumed she had nodded her head when Cindy said, “Idiot. Does he not know anything?”

Peter furrowed his brows at that. He looked behind his shoulder at them. MJ’s hair fell over her shoulders in loose waves, her gaze was aimed resolutely at the ground, and he could just make out the faintest bruise peeking out from underneath her hair.

He caught Cindy glaring at him and quickly whipped his head around. That was a hickey. That was a hickey  _ he _ had given her. He cursed himself mentally for not having the foresight to avoid leaving marks on her. He had no right— _ no right _ —to do that without asking her first. God, he was such a dick.

And her hair. What was wrong with taking out her braids? Was he really that clueless? Was that a thing?

MJ read romance, and, in turn, he read romance, but he had never read anything about not taking out a girl’s hair.

He decided he would ask Karen later. Karen always knew the answers to his questions.

He sat back down, and noticed Lily staring at him again. All the sudden he felt so naked, so exposed. They weren’t playing truth or dare anymore, so he decided he could put his shirt back on.

She didn’t stop looking, though. He could taste the bile in his throat from the feeling of her gaze on his skin, and he wanted to go back to being the awkward, nerdy boy everybody always saw before tonight.

Why had he ever thought saying her name was a good idea?

——————————————————————

“Karen?” He said into his mask. The cold was starting to seep through his suit, even though it was heated. It was a welcome feeling as he swung from building to building, making sure MJ made it back to her apartment safely.

“Yes, Peter?”

“Cindy—she’s one of my friends—said something about my taking the braids out of MJ’s hair tonight. Am I not supposed to do that?”

“Is MJ the girl we’re stalking?”

“Yes—wait,  _ no _ . We are not _ stalking _ her. I just want to make sure she gets home without any trouble. Stalking is—is bad. This is not bad, this is because I’m a superhero. Superhero’s do this kind of thing, right? Right?” MJ turned and he swung nimbly around the corner of a building to keep her in his line of sight.

“Peter.”

“What?”

“You’re spiraling again.”

“Sorry, Karen.”

“MJ is black, correct?”

“Yeah, but why is that important?”

“You shouldn’t touch a black woman’s hair--especially without permission. It can be viewed as offensive”

“Oh.”

“Did she say you could touch her hair? Did she ask you to?”

_Shit_. “No. Karen, I don’t know anything about anything. What am I supposed to do?” He could feel his heart in his throat, desperately attempting to force its way out of his mouth.

“Well, you could start by apologizing. And maybe do dome research about her culture.”

Peter sighed. “Yeah. You’re right. I have a lot of apologizing to do.” For more than just the braids. He needed to tell her about everything. Spider-man and how he had been pretending to visit her as a completely different person, Lily and how shitty it had made her feel… but most importantly, he needed to tell her how he felt. Screw his true mate. He didn’t care about them like he cared about Michelle Jones. He didn’t care about anyone like he cared for her. He needed to come clean about everything, and he knew when he did he would have a lot of making up to do, but maybe one day she could forgive him. Maybe one day they could be more than friends.

As he watched MJ insert the key into her apartment building, struggling a bit at first to get the key into the slot, he made his decision. 

He was going to tell her everything tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! A different POV!
> 
> Not gonna lie, it was weird not writing from MJ's perspective, but I think I did an okay job lol.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl
> 
> I post sneak peaks on there usually about once a week now.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably not what you wanted... oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shrugs*
> 
> Also, to those of you who didn't know... STOP! I POSTED AN EXTRA CHAPTER FOR CHRISTMAS!! GO READ THAT FIRST!

Michelle didn’t know what to do about Peter. Last night had been close. Too close for her comfort—hell, she had almost willingly shown him her mark.

She was an idiot. They had no means of birth control available and if he’d seen that spider of his on her chest everything would have gone to shit. And the hickeys—fucking hell, the hickeys. There were so many of them; all over her jaw and neck and the top of her chest, dark bruises littering her chocolate skin like butterflies flocking to an especially sweet flower.

Peter had to have some kind of superhuman sucking ability. Ew, that was an uncomfortable thought, but it was true all the same. What was she supposed to do about them? She was shit at makeup and she would die before she wore a turtleneck as anything but a fashion statement; hickeys were a weak reason to wear a turtleneck. _Makeup it is, then_ , she thought.

As it turns out, MJ didn’t actually own much makeup. A tube of mascara and old concealer that barely matched her skin tone--she was actually pretty sure it used to be her mom’s.

She started at her jawline, furiously dabbing with her finger over the small hurts. They were slightly sore, but in an almost pleasant way. MJ’s face flooded with heat as she briefly wondered if Peter had any hickeys—if _she_ had given him any hickeys last night. His mouth hadn’t been the only one exploring, after all.

She could still remember the way he tasted one her tongue, how his skin felt against hers, and she cursed quietly as a wave of heat rushed down to her core. This was not the time or the place. 

Actually, there was never a time or a place to be thinking of Peter like that. She had been tipsy, sure, but Peter’d had a lot more to drink than she did. He wasn’t thinking clearly when he kissed her. It was probably a mix of the alcohol and the call of the mark. He liked Lily, he had admitted that much during the game last night. She was just a substitute, an understudy for the real thing.

She shook her head furiously, trying desperately to stop the tears before they started. She couldn’t let this weakness in today. Today she had to be strong because he would approach her in class and they would have to _talk_ about it and MJ had to be strong for that conversation. She just had to be.

She went down to her bottle of concealer to pull more product off the applicator. It was dry, so she dipped it back into the bottle. A little bit of product clung to the end of the stick when she pulled it out again. Less than there had been the first time and definitely not enough. MJ cursed.

She ended up wearing the turtleneck.

—————————————————————

MJ walked to homeroom with her head down and her books clutched tightly to her chest. She flung herself into her seat and immediately pulled out her sketchbook, sketching the faint outline of a teardrop before starting in on the shading.

A pale finger flew in front of her face and snapped a few times just below her nose. She furrowed her brows and looked up at Betty and Cindy. The former was glowing in a way that only finding your soulmate could accomplish. Cindy was just scowling. “What’s that on your face?” She hissed.

“Nothing,” MJ snapped, pulling her curtain of hair further in front of her face. Was it really that obvious?

“You’re wearing makeup and a _turtleneck_ , Michelle,” she said. “And we all know you’re absolute shit at makeup, so spill.”

MJ looked to Betty for help but was met only with a curious stare and pursed lips. “They’re hickeys,” she said quietly.

“ _They?_ There are multiple? I’m going to murder him,” Cindy whispered. “First _Lily_ , then the braids, now this.”

MJ was just confused now. There was nothing wrong with Peter liking Lily. He was attractive, she was attractive, they would be cute together. She hated it, but they would. She just shrugged and went back to her drawing, focusing not on the ache in her bones, but the delicate shading of the teardrop taking shape on the paper.

First period was one she shared with Peter, and she was not looking forward to it. She was terrified, if she was being honest with herself. She did and didn’t know what to expect at the same time. Would he freak out on her? Would he give her the cold shoulder? Was there some unforeseen third option?

MJ sat down in her usual seat and pulled out her book. Maybe if she pretended nothing had happened he would do the same and they could just go back to normal. Maybe everything would be fine. Maybe she hadn’t ruined her most important friendship.

She felt rather than saw Peter slide into the seat next to her. A deep breath passed through her body as she readied herself for the oncoming shit-show. She could feel him looking at her but she didn’t meet his gaze. “I need to talk to you.”

He sounded so sure, so confident and resolute in what he was about to say. It terrified her more than she expected. “It’s fine, Peter. We made a stupid mistake last night.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about—”

“We were both drinking last night. I get it; really, it’s not a big deal.”

“Michelle—”

“You and Lily are cute together, and I—I’m dating Brad now, anyway.” She didn’t know what made her say it. Maybe it was fear of the rejection sure to come. And Brad had been nice enough to her last night. He seemed interested, at least, and she needed to feel less useless, less like a wet blanket if Peter was going to find her worthy of being his friend.

She waited for a moment, but he didn’t say anything. She finally looked at him. His brows were creased together and he had the smallest frown on his face. “Oh,” was all he said.

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Well, I’m—I’m happy for you.”

MJ gulped. “Thanks.” Then, to seem more normal about the entire situation, she said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He glanced around quickly. “Nothing, I—your hair. I’m sorry I touched it. I mean, I shouldn’t have—I didn’t know about… I should have known not to take out your braids. I’m sorry.” She waited because he seemed like he had more to say. “I did some research.”

She nodded, smiling softly. She knew he hadn’t meant any harm by it, but it was cute that he had followed up on his mistake. No, it wasn’t cute—she wasn’t supposed to be thinking things like that anymore. “Thanks, Peter. I forgive you.”

He nodded just as Mr. Stiller entered the classroom, and they both turned back to the board. Things were going to be okay.

———————————————————

Michelle tracked down Brad in the hallway before lunch, and he was more than willing to go out with her. She wanted to cringe; Brad was nice, but he wasn’t who she wanted.

It was better this way. She just had to keep telling herself that and then it would be fine. Everything would be fine.

She made her way to lunch, feeling worse not better. She had expected to at least feel a little better, but she had this sinking feeling in her gut that she couldn’t explain. She needed to get a hold of herself if she was going to get through the rest of high school mentally sane. 

MJ sat down in her usual spot across from Cindy, dropping her lunch unceremoniously on the table and smiling faintly in Ned’s direction. She noticed then that Cindy wasn’t the only one sitting next to Ned. Betty was there, too, which made the bench uncomfortably crowded, but none of them seemed to care. The wood was smooth under her fingers as she spread her hands out across the table, stretching out her tired joints and tendons. 

Ned smiled at her. “Nice turtleneck, MJ.”

“Thanks, Ned,” she choked out, pulling out her salad and opening it hastily. She was _hungry._

She scooted over as Peter slid gracefully in next to her. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him, but she did notice Cindy shooting him a rather angry glance that quickly became concerned. Instead she chose to focus on her salad, the sharp smell of the vinaigrette as it invaded her nostrils.

“Hey, M,” Peter said. “How was your morning?”

He was fine. She had been right to assume last night was a mistake. She swallowed. Her throat was suddenly so dry, and the headache she had ignored that morning getting ready was starting to pound in her ears. “Good,” she said. “I have a small headache, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Oh!” Betty said, pride lacing her voice, “I have Advil.”

MJ gladly accepted it and went back to her salad just as Harry said, “So, last night, huh?”

Betty grinned, squeezing Ned’s hand on the table. “Yeah.”

“I think Lily seemed a little interested in me,” Harry said nervously. “She’s really pretty.”

 _Yeah_ , MJ thought, _she is_. She waited for Peter to say something, but he never did.

The rest of lunch went by in a blur with MJ only half-listening, caught between paying attention to her salad and how cold it was in the cafeteria. How warm Peter was next to her, heat rolling off him in waves. He really wasn’t lying when he said he ran hot.

Notes, a pop-quiz, more notes, and finally MJ was in health class with Mr. Miln. He looked at her curiously but she didn’t pay him any attention, instead opting to open a book even though she knew she wouldn’t remember anything that had happened.

It felt like hours passed, but she knew it was only a matter of minutes before Mr. Miln called the class to attention. “Today was supposed to be about sexually-transmitted diseases, but it looks like some of you aren’t up for that so let’s have a mental health day instead.”

MJ just wanted to hug him in that moment. Today had been long—really long—and she didn’t think she would have been able to make it through the day without a break. She heard a sigh from her left and looked to see Peter relaxing back into his chair.

“I’ll just put on some relaxing music and turn the lights off. You can do whatever you want so long as you stay off your screens. Flash, this is your opportunity to sleep in class with my permission.” A smattering of giggles broke out across the room at that, but nobody was going to complain. It was a chance to sleep during school. What more could a high-schooler as for?

Michelle closed her eyes and tried to empty her head and relax.

———————————————————

MJ went home and did her homework in record time. It was a shame, really, because she needed a distraction now more than ever.

On a normal day, she would have called Peter, but today wasn’t normal. She still couldn’t look at him without wanting to fall apart, so she texted Cindy and Betty to see if they wanted to come over.

It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes when she heard a knock on her door.

God, she loved her friends.

—————————————————————

“Did you talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you look like the dictionary definition of depression?”

“I stopped it before it got bad.”

“What do you mean _before it got bad_?” Cindy’s voice cut through the room like a hot knife through butter. 

“I told him last night was a mistake. That we were both drunk and it was okay to just move on.”

“But it wasn’t a mistake,” Betty cut in. “You’ve wanted to do that for over a year.”

MJ pulled a card from the top of the pile and swore when she realized she couldn’t use it. “ _I’ve_ wanted to, but a relationship goes two ways.”

“Both of you are the dumbest geniuses I know. You need to talk to him,” Cindy said.

MJ scoffed. “I talk to him every day.” She watched as Betty drew a card and started the process of swapping cards around until she got stuck on a queen.

“That doesn’t count. You’re not talking about the things that matter. Have your books taught you nothing?”

MJ shrugged. They could try to convince her all they wanted, but at some point she had to protect her heart. “I have a boyfriend now, anyway.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Betty swore. “Who?”

“Brad.”

“Fuck.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You don’t like Brad,” Betty pointed out, scrunching up her nose in a way that MJ knew made Ned crazy.

“He’s nice enough,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“That’s not fair to Peter,” Cindy said.

“Even after Lily?”

“Fair point,” she conceded, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Can we just play the game?” MJ asked. She was getting tired of this conversation. Clearly they had very different ideas of what Peter wanted, and she couldn’t do all these mental gymnastics. Not today.

“Sure, MJ,” Betty said. “But I hope you know this will only come back to bite you in the ass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting really hard to write because this shit is both infuriating and depressing at the same time. I'm much better at writing fluff lol.
> 
> I've just gotta keep plugging on, I guess.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @ohshit-itsyagorl or whatever.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The angst continues (?)

Weeks passed and MJ felt more and more like a shell of herself every day. Most days she tried not to talk too much. Most days Betty and Cindy pushed her to tell Peter. Most days she could barely look at Peter. Most days she didn’t look in the mirror, though her friends asked her about the bags under her eyes, or the sallow look to her once-rich skin.

And her mark has stopped transferring sensation to the rest of her body. Last year she would have welcomed the change, but now it just feels like a part of her is missing. She realized that she had grown used to the constant pounding of Peter’s heart against her own, even grown to rely on the relentless rhythm and the way it sped up after school, or the way it slowed down late at night. She would have thought he was dead if she wasn’t seeing him at school every day.

To make matters worse, Spider-man hadn’t shown up at her window since she had sewn him up. She missed him almost as much as she missed Peter. Sure, she saw Peter every day, but they rarely talked anymore. They never hung out, and MJ knew that was her fault. She knew she was pushing him away at every turn. She could even admit to herself that it was destroying her inside—losing the connection to him, maybe even to her masked hero if Peter had told him what had happened. 

She could feel the soft fabric of her comforter clutched beneath her fists as she squeezed her eyes shut, back pressed firmly against the bed with her feet hanging over the side. She thought about today. It was a Saturday which meant she had nothing to do. Rolling out of bed with a groan, she trudged over to the small easel in the corner of her room. She hadn’t painted in ages, but her fingers itched to pick up a brush in a way they hadn’t as of late.

Michelle threw her hair up into a messy bun and threw on an old, ratty t-shirt. She pulled out a stool and rummaged through her bin of oil paints She sat there for hours, fingers flying across the canvas in a whirl of brushes and knives, red and blue and the shiny, metallic grey of skyscrapers. The white of spider silk as it spun out between the spires of buildings that flew so high it gave her a sense of vertigo even though she wasn’t there. 

She remembered how he had described it—that feeling of falling until the last moment when he would catch himself. She wondered what it felt like to free fall hundreds of feet. 

Looking at her painting, she realized just how much she missed him. She missed him so much it hurt, and she felt her eyes start to water up. 

She looked out at the fire escape. That had been their place. She had punched him when they first met—that made her smile, pulled her lips apart just in time for her to taste the first salty tear as it slipped between the gap in her lips.

And how many countless hours had he spent on her ceiling, or helping her with AP chemistry when she didn’t understand a concept.

She brought her hand up to her mark, pushing down so hard it hurt, but she felt nothing from the tattoo. 

She let out a broken sob as she looked back at the painting, and suddenly she was so angry. Angry at herself for pushing away the boy she loved. She hated that she had lost Peter and Spider-man in what seemed like a span of a few hours.

And it was because she was weak. It was always because she let her heart get the best of her brain.

She was so  _ angry. _

Her hand came up and slashed across the painting, dragging the red and blue and grey and green and white across the canvas in one fell swoop. The image left behind was a tangled mess, and MJ cried harder at hours of work and a beautiful painting gone in a matter of seconds. Her hands came up to her quivering lips and she yanked them across her face and through her hair, coating herself in the thick paint but she didn’t even care.

Everything hurt in a way she wasn’t used to. It wasn’t like the brutal cramping of her fingers after hours of art, or the burning in her legs after a long run. No, this was worse. Much worse. It felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside by her own body. As if her heart was lashing out at the rest of her organs in a way that made everything  _ ache,  _ in a way that made her want to tear her hair out.

MJ hadn’t cried since everything happened, preferring instead to bathe herself in the cool numbness of ignorance, and the experience was cathartic in a way she never could have imagined.

She had gotten cold feet with Brad days after she had asked him out. They had gone on one date and it was so incredibly awkward she couldn’t  bear to go on another.

Michelle had even explained why, saying she liked someone else and it wasn’t fair to him for her to keep leading him on.

“It’s okay, Michelle,” he had said. “I knew it was a long shot, anyway.” And he had been so kind about it that it made her feel like an even bigger piece of shit.

She was just the worst.

So she let the tears fall, tracking their way through the paint on her face and sliding down her chin.

She missed them both so much. She missed the way she would get caught in Peter’s eyes, the way it felt to wake up pressed against his chest (even if it was only twice), the way he knew what she was thinking even when she didn’t. She missed Spider-man, and how he always told Peter everything, and the book club they had started, and she could admit to herself she felt safe sleeping next to him, too.

She let out another low keen at the things she had allowed herself to throw away. At the emptiness that used to be full of life and color and  _ Peter _ . 

Before she knew what she was doing she was at her window unlatching the lock and pushing up on the rim. The gust of cool air that blew into the room made her shiver but she threw her leg over the edge anyway. It was January and the temperatures were below freezing; her arms were already turning to goose-flesh, skin pebbled and hair sticking up against the cold.

MJ winced when her bare feet hit the rough metal of the fire escape, tears and paint starting to freeze on her face. Her toes curled against the rungs with every tentative step she took toward the railing. She leaned over the edge and looked down at the bleak alleyway below. It was so cold but she still didn’t go inside, just stood there in nothing but her painting shirt and shorts, waiting for her fingers and toes to go numb. The snow below her was a soft white, stark in contrast with the brown slush that lined the streets. She liked snow even though it was cold. It had a peaceful element to it that always seemed to calm her down, so she started at it in silence, and when it started to fall and her skin was thoroughly frozen and the water droplets had frozen on her cheeks, she welcomed the cold sting each snowflake brought to her nose, lips, and ears.

“What are you doing out here? You’ll freeze to death.”

Michelle sobbed at the voice—the modulated voice she knew could only be one person. She turned slowly, thinking at first she had imagined it, but there he was, standing behind her, big, white eyes narrowed in concern.

It was a marvel she hadn’t felt him land behind her, but that was his job, she supposed.

She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his neck. She could have sighed at the heat rolling off him in waves despite the cold weather. He held her as she cried into him, not even letting go as he scooped up her legs and slipped through her open window. He supported her with one arm as he deftly pushed it closed and snapped the latch to the left.

Spider-man brought his gloved hand up to her cheek and swore. “You’re so cold.” He brushed a tear away from under her eye. “And you’re covered in frozen paint.”

She studied his face—or rather his mask—the way it spider-webbed across his face and how his eyes always shifted slightly, never staying the same size for more than a second. Those eyes narrowed slightly, and he asked, “Are you okay?”

No. “Yes.”

“You were crying.”

She shrugged. “The last few weeks have been... rough.” She couldn’t stop looking at him, trying to memorize every line and curve of his lean, muscled body. This was the most she would ever know him. She would never know the boy behind the mask, what he truly looked like—the color of his eyes or hair, the shape of his nose and mouth. Did he have freckles? Was he pale like the moon or dark like cracked earth?

She could hear the frown in his voice when he said, “You're covered in paint.”

She smiled slightly. “You said that already.”

He huffed a breath and she wished she could feel it on her face. “What happened, anyway?” He asked, moving to her bed and grabbing a blanket to drape over her shoulders. She pulled it around herself, shivering violently into the fabric. “Damnit, M. How long were you out there?”

She shrugged, feeling ridiculous all of a sudden. She should have known better than to stand out there in the cold for so long.

She was weak.

Spider-man looked over at her easel and let out a soft  _ oh _ . “Was it not going well?”

“No,” she said. “No, it was. It was really beautiful, actually, I just...” she felt the sentence die in her throat and shook her head, swallowing thickly and looking at where the wood met her carpet on the floor. She felt the tears in her eyes again and wanted to slap herself. She was a mess. Why was she such a mess?

Spider-man swore and gripped her chin in his fingers. “C’mon,” he said. “Bathroom.” He started off toward the door, pulling her with him as she fought to hold back the next onslaught of tears. She heard the faucet squeak when he turned the sink on and sat her down on the toilet. He wet a washcloth and started to bring it toward her face.

“That won’t work. It’s oil paint.”

“There are different kinds of paint?” He said stupidly. She nodded, feeling the ghost of a grin start to form on her face as she did. He sighed in defeat, drooping the washcloth into the sink. “What can I use, then?”

“I have some mineral oil in the cabinet behind the mirror,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall. She was still so cold, the blanket not doing much for the chill buried deep in her bones. When she glanced back at him he was unlatching the top of the bottle, half-empty from use and covered in greasy paint-stains. “Wait!” She said, just as he was about to pour some oil into his hand. “Your suit—”

“Has been through worse,” he finished for her,  pouring the mineral oil into his gloved hand. He took her hands in hers and gently started rubbing away at the paint. They stayed like that, him standing, her sitting, both silent, just drinking in the other’s presence. It was oddly peaceful, and her hands slowly started to relax against his as he worked the paint off her skin. She had missed this—this comfortable silence they had the ability to share. It was something that was hard to come by in life, especially when everyone just seemed to want to talk, talk, talk. 

He moved his hands up to her face and started to massage the oil into her paint-soaked skin. MJ closed her eyes, leaning into the touch slightly in a way she hadn’t expected to, loving the way his hands were gentle but firm. His finger traced her upper lip so casually she almost didn’t notice it. Almost. 

“I won’t do your hair,” he said softly, clearing his throat when it came out rough and course through the mask.

She nodded and opened her eyes to look at him. He was standing there, awkward in a way only a few people could manage, suit probably in need of a good wash after the copious amounts of mineral oil he had used to lift the paint from her face and hands. 

A violent shiver wracked her body but she didn’t dare wrap the blanket around herself lest she ruin the fabric with her oily hands. Spider-man pulled her up by her arms and turned on the sink. “You’re still cold,” he said, and she could hear the concern coating his voice.

“Yeah,” Michelle said awkwardly. She knew how warm he could be but she didn’t want to risk it. Last time they had been in this situation she hadn’t seen him for over a month. She moved to the sink and quickly washed away the oil. “I guess that's what I get for standing outside in clothes fit for summer weather.” She cleaned off her face, too, careful to avoid rubbing the mineral oil into her eyes. She didn’t know what else to say to him, her brain a jumble of thoughts and questions. In the end, she chose not to say anything.

Spider-man cleared his throat and said, “You…” 

She waited for him to continue but he seemed to be having trouble voicing his thoughts, the syllables getting caught in his throat, thick and uncomfortable. “I missed you,” she blurted, then cursed herself for loosing the hold she had on her tongue. “I mean,” she continued, “When you stopped coming I thought—I thought I would never see you again.”

“Oh,” he said, shifting on his feet. “I missed you, too.”

She looked at him—really looked—tried with all her might to read the unchanging mask on his face, but, unsurprisingly, she couldn’t figure him out. “Why did you stay away?” She sucked on her teeth, waiting with bated breath for his answer.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

MJ furrowed her brows in confusion. “What gave you that idea?”

He started to say something but seemed to think better of it. Then, “I don’t know.”

Michelle sighed, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself and moving back into the bedroom where she burrowed down onto the edge of her bed in an attempt to get warmer.

When she looked up again Spider-man was standing at her easel studying the ruined painting. “What was it of?” He asked quietly, almost too quietly to hear.

“It’s not important,” she replied. “How—” she started, but his head snapped up and toward the window. He was gone in a flash, out the window and around the corner in less than a second. Michelle’s words died in her throat.  _ How have you been?  _ That’s what she had been going to ask, but it was no use now. He was probably off saving someone. That was his job, after all.

She was so cold, but seeing him again made everything worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woot


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One word: condoms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, because this week has been something else.
> 
> I wasn't going to post at all but then I felt bad, so...
> 
> (It's only 1k, sorry).

Michelle got sick the next day. She should have expected it after stupidly spending so much time in the cold, but when she woke up with shivers wracking her body and sweat gathering across her brow, she didn’t regret anything. Nothing at all, because she had seen Spider-man again, and that was all that mattered. And he hadn’t stayed away because of that night—at least she didn’t think he had. He told her he thought she didn’t want to see him. She didn’t know where he had ever gotten that idea, but she also knew if she thought too hard about it she would make herself sicker than she already was.

She stayed home from school, much to her chagrin. She wanted to go anyway but her mom had taken one look at her and sent her straight back to bed.

Michelle chewed on her lip, pulling her coves more tightly around herself in an effort to drive away the miserable cold that had taken residence in her bones.

Getting one of her friends back had felt so good, and she wondered if she should try to rekindle her friendship with Peter, but… what if he got close again? What if the next time she didn’t stop him?

And she still needed to figure out the birth control thing.

What had Mr. Miln said? Michelle thought it might have something o do with Tony Stark, so she pulled out her phone and opened safari.

The first thing she tried was _Tony Stark birth control_ , but all that came up were condoms with Iron Man on them. She rolled her eyes. Typical. The next thing she tried yielded similar results, and she groaned in frustration. But the third time—that gave her what she needed. She clicked on a promising-looking link and read the description: _Birth control specially designed by Tony Stark to be resistant to the magic of true mates, these condoms don’t change the sensation—_

Michelle put her phone down, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. She didn’t want to admit there was even a possibility of her needing them, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t leave it up to chance—that was just asking for trouble.

She looked at the shipping time. Three months. _Three months_. That was a long time. She bit her lip and shut off her phone, setting it to the side before crawling under her covers with a book.

She missed Peter. She missed Peter so much it hurt,but she didn’t know how to approach him. She couldn’t very well tell him the truth. She opened her book and settled in, sniffling slightly and burrowing deeper into the comforter.

She fell asleep sometime after lunch. Her mom made her soup, and Michelle had to admit it was nice being taken care of for a change. She knew it wasn’t her mom’s fault all those years that she couldn’t take care of her daughter, and she also knew the great extent of the guilt her mother felt about that same subject, but there had been a warmth inside her that wasn’t just from the warm soup she was eating.

Michelle didn’t know how much time she had been sleeping bore she was jolted awake by an insistent tapping on her window. She smiled when she saw who it was, and dragged her blanket along with her as she moved to the window to let him in.

“I figured you were sick,” he said by way of greeting. She scowled at him and he chuckled, crawling through her window and landing silently behind her. She had half a mind to try and shut the window on him while he was halfway through, but restrained herself—if only because she was so happy he had come back.

“Nice to see you, too, Idiot,” she grumbled, pulling her blanket more tightly around herself.

He came over to her and pushed an errant curl off her brow. “Are you okay? You’re not really sick, are you?”

“No,” she sighed, “just a common cold.” She walked over to her bed and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. They stayed like that for a minute, just breathing in the other’s presence, before, “You work for Tony Stark, right?” He nodded, which she took as a sign to continue. “I—fuck, I don’t know how to say this. I need condoms,” she blurted, hands balling up into fists in embarrassment.

She waited for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of seconds, for him to answer.

“Wait, what?” He coughed pointedly, looking away to the ruined painting she hadn’t bothered to clean up.

“I need—”

“I know—I heard what you said, I just didn’t think you and Brad had gotten that far.”

So he had been in touch with Peter, then. “No!” She squeaked, cleared her throat. “No, I—Brad and I broke up a while ago. It was a mistake—he was a mistake. I Just,” —how was she supposed to say this— “I found him—my true mate—and I need to be prepared… just in case.”

He simply nodded, but didn’t say anything, so she said again. “I need condoms.”

“I’m not that kind of superhero, you know.”

“Tony Stark—he makes the kind of condoms I need.”

“Uh-uh.”

“God, you’re not making this any easier.” MJ breathed out a sigh before continuing, “I want you. To. Get me. Condoms. From. Tony Stark.”

“No. Absolutely not. He’s my _boss_ , MJ. I’m not going to ask my boss for _condoms_.”

“But the shipping—”

“Just wait for it—I’m sure you can wait until they arrive.”

“Peter and I are in the same health class. I thought he would have told you—”

“ _Peter_ doesn’t pay attention in health class. The condoms are a no-go. You can buy them in anonymity, but I am not asking my boss, _Tony Stark,_ for some condoms.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “Fine.”

“In all curiosity, what’s the issue with normal condoms?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finals coming up, so updates might be a bit sporadic the next couple weeks. Thank you for all your love and support!

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments. They feed my ego and inspire me to keep writing!


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